Any way to bulk-correct messed up URLs and meta titles cause by using "Duplicate Product"?

[MyCsPiTTa]

I had someone on Fiverr upload about 300 products for me a few weeks back.

Now I'm going through the SEO meta titles and descriptions and it looks like each product has the URL and Meta Title of the product that came before it (see screenshot), as well as having "copy" appended to everything.

I'm guessing this is because the uploader used "Duplicate" for each and every product 🤦‍

I can fix the Meta Titles easily enough, but I assume I also have to update every URL manually, otherwise the URL will show the wrong product name. Doing so also creates a redirect, I believe.

Is there any easy way to do this in bulk? And is there anything I need to be wary of before starting? I'll admit, I'm only just learning about meta data and product URLs, so I'm not sure of the consequences before I start messing with URLs for 300 products (which looks like it will also take me DAYS if I have to go and edit each one individually by hand 😭).

TBH, I've always found it surprising that Shopify keeps the parent URL (+"copy") when duplicating a product. Why doesn't it just leave it blank until you save the new product title?

[Ablestar_Daniel · Accepted solution]

Hi @MyCsPiTTa,

Ah, that's annoying (and interesting that the 'copy' gets preserved in the URLs). There's two ways I can think of to fix this in bulk:

Using the built-in Shopify CSV export/import

You can download a CSV export of all your products from the product page of the Shopify admin, fix the values in a spreadsheet, and then re-upload the spreadsheet to Shopify. If you select the "Overwrite products with matching handles" option when re-uploading the file, Shopify will update your products with the data you provided.

This is free, and shouldn't take too long if you're just shifting the value of a column down by one, but it's hard to see exactly what Shopify's doing when the products are being updated. To be safe I would:

1. Keep a copy of your exported data with the original info so you can revert to that if something gets messed up
2. Test the update process with 2-3 products first to make sure it works

Ablestar Bulk Product Editor

If you're open to using a 3rd-party app our Ablestar Bulk Product Editor can quickly set the SEO metatitle and handles to match your products' titles (and create the redirects). Here's a quick video showing how that would be done:

You can also build out more elaborate SEO titles using additional placeholders to, for example, include the vendor's name in the SEO title. Although, if you just want the SEO title to match the product title exactly, you can also clear out the field and then it will default to the product's title.

Best,

Daniel

[MyCsPiTTa]

Thanks, that's a good idea! I'll try the CSV first