draft products result in URL 404?

Danielexx85
Explorer
99 0 15

hi,

my drafted products result in URL 404? should I consider to archived to avoid the 404?

www.caglio.co.uk
Replies 4 (4)

Tira
Shopify Staff (Retired)
1260 90 223

Hi, @Danielexx85.

Tira here to help.

Are you referring to products that aren’t published yet, but have a link on your store? 

If that is what’s going on, then I recommend using a URL Redirect. URL Redirects will redirect to another page on your store. You could create a URL to redirect to make sure customers find what they are looking for. For example, customers can be redirected to a similar product to your store when a product is deleted or not yet published. 

To create a URL redirect, you can follow these steps:

  • Login to your Shopify Admin
  • Click on Online Store > Navigation
  • Click on URL Redirects > Create URL Redirect
    In Redirect from, add the old URL where you want to redirect visitors from. Only broken URLs should be redirected - if the URL is still leading to a working webpage, then the redirect will not work. 
  • In Redirect to, enter the new URL where you want to redirect visitors to. If you want to redirect to your store's home page, then enter /. 
  • Click Save redirect.

I would love to know if this helps you achieve what you want to accomplish.

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

bestyfit
New Member
4 0 0

Hi Shopify team, I would like to know if once I have set up a redirect for all my drafts and archive products do I have to remove the redirect again once I want to make my product active? OR it cancels the redirect automatically since it will be a working page?

I have a lot products that I have archived, since I can produce them from time to time, not very often, or I could sell them again in the future, so I don't want to permanently delete them. And I place other in "draft" since I don't want them showing when they are sold out but I am constantly restocking. Or I am just drafting new products that are coming. How can I avoid all 404 urls that I am getting and that are hurting my SEO. Without constantly having to redirect each product, one by one, and then removing redirect manually once they are active. That is just crazy amount of work and steps. 

Thank you

Tira
Shopify Staff (Retired)
1260 90 223

Hey, @bestyfit

Tira here to help.

If you already have a URL Redirect set-up for a product that is no longer active, then when you make a product available on your online store, that redirect will be deleted, so no redirect can occur and you won’t have to go back to delete the redirect. 

If you need to make a new redirect for a product you will make available, then you can make a new redirect but the URL won’t be the same as your old redirect (for your archived products, for example).

It does sound like unpublishing and republishing your products would be overwhelming. If you are selling products that you won’t have for a while, I recommend creating an alert that tells your customers when items are back in stock, or leaving the product page on your store as the product sells out. 

What kind of products do you sell? Please let me know and I can provide some resources for you to make this process easier for you.

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

Divyajain
Shopify Partner
5 0 0

Hi Shopify team, my store is jhakhas.com , we deal in ethnic wear products i want to make some products draft based on its availability at that time, considering this i am struggling on redirect bulk draft to new urls.

 

all draft showing 404 errors, picking one URL AND doing redirect is a tedious process, in this situation how to get the export of draft products with URL so that i dont have to do it 1000 times of each products which are in draft.

 

how to set up the redirect of draft products automatically.??