How to fix 404 errors on an online store
Stores create 404s all the time: products are discontinued, collections renamed, addresses changed in a migration. Most of them are harmless. The ones that matter are pages other sites still link to, and pages your own site still points at.
Check your site free
Not every 404 needs fixing
Google’s position is that 404s are a normal part of the web and do not hurt the rest of your site. A product that is gone for good, with no replacement and nothing linking to it, can simply return 404 or 410.
Two kinds are worth fixing. Dead pages with backlinks: those links were earned, and a 301 redirect to the page that replaced it passes their value on instead of throwing it away. And dead pages your own site still links to — in menus, related products or the sitemap — which waste crawling and frustrate shoppers.
What not to do: redirect every 404 to the homepage. Google treats that as a soft 404 and ignores the redirect, so the links are lost anyway. Redirect to the closest equivalent — the new version of the product, or its category. For products that are only sold out, see out-of-stock product SEO.
Which 404s to fix first
- Dead pages with backlinks: The highest value: the links already exist.
- Dead pages in your sitemap: Remove or redirect them; a sitemap should list only live, indexable pages.
- Broken internal links: Links in menus, categories and related products that point at removed pages.
- Redirect chains: A → B → C: point A straight at C.
- Soft 404s: Empty category or search pages that return 200 but say “no products found”.
How to fix them
- Find them: “Not found (404)” in Search Console’s Pages report, and a site audit for broken internal links and redirect chains.
- For each dead page with links or traffic, choose the closest live page.
- Add a 301 redirect — on Shopify under Navigation → URL redirects, on WordPress with a redirect plugin. The site audit’s Fix can suggest the replacement page and write the redirect to Shopify or WordPress after you approve; every redirect can be removed again.
- Update internal links to point straight at the new page.
- Re-check after Google’s next crawl.
Questions people ask
- Do 404 errors hurt SEO?
- Not on their own. They matter when the missing page had backlinks or traffic, or when your own site keeps linking to it.
- 301 or 410 for a discontinued product?
- 301 when there is a close replacement or a new version; 410 or 404 when it is gone for good with no equivalent and nothing links to it.
- Should I redirect all 404s to the homepage?
- No. Google treats mass redirects to the homepage as soft 404s, so they pass no value. Redirect to the closest equivalent, or leave the 404.