Dealing With Excessive 404 Errors: 410 Gone vs Removal From Sitemap

Technical Q&A
1

Hello, I’m currently facing an issue with a large number of 404 errors on my website, and I’d like to address it by taking the following actions:

  1. Convert certain 404 URLs to 410 Gone where the pages are permanently removed

  2. Remove 404 URLs from the sitemap

Could you please advise on the best way to handle these two tasks properly?

Here are the details for reference:

Thank you in advance for your guidance.

2

On Shopify, a few key points you need to note to keep this clean and practical:

  • You shouldn’t manually edit sitemap.xml. It should always auto-generated. URLs drop out should only when the underlying product, page, or collection is fully deleted.

  • Shopify returns 404 by default for deleted resources. Native 410 isn’t supported unless you add edge logic, which is usually unnecessary.

  • Before changing status codes, review Search Console + analytics:

    • If a 404 URL has traffic or backlinks, use a 301 redirect to the closest relevant page (homepage only if nothing else fits).

    • If it has no value and no internal links, leaving it as 404 is fine.

  • Make sure no 404 URLs are linked internally. That’s the biggest real issue.

So the best practice here is: delete unused objects so Shopify updates the sitemap automatically, prioritize 301 redirects based on analytics, and don’t worry too much about forcing 410s.

3

It sounds like you’re simply talking about the many “errors” you would typically see on the Pages tab of Google Search Console, when you delete pages or products. If this is the case, that is not able to be cleared. It’s just a historical record, it doesn’t mean that’s what is currently unfixed. Resubmit the sitemap if you wish.

If you have a deleted product or page url that you want to be redirected then you can do that in Shopify admin.

4

Thank you very much. I’ve already been using 301 redirects to handle some 404 errors, but there are quite a lot of them. Even though these URLs don’t have any internal links, Google Search Console still frequently reports a high number of 404 pages.

Because of that, I was considering handling this by excluding those URLs from the sitemap and returning a 410 Gone status instead. However, it seems that automatically excluding URLs from Shopify’s auto-generated sitemap isn’t really possible. For now, I’ll likely continue using 301 redirects as the most practical way to resolve this issue.

5

Hey @Green818!

For this situation, 410 Gone is usually the better option if the pages are permanently removed and will never return. It clearly tells search engines the URLs are intentionally gone, so they tend to drop them from the index faster than 404s.

And unfortunately, Shopify does not currently provide a native way to automatically exclude specific URLs from its auto-generated sitemap.

However, here are some possible steps you can take:

  • Set pages/products to noindex
    Search engines may still see the URL in the sitemap, but they won’t index it.
  • Delete or redirect unused URLs
    Use 410 Gone or proper 301 redirects so search engines drop them faster.
  • Control what gets created
    Avoid generating unnecessary pages (like unused collections or tag URLs).
  • Use a custom sitemap (advanced)
    Some merchants generate and submit a separate custom sitemap to Google Search Console and ignore Shopify’s default one, but Shopify’s sitemap will still exist.

But take note that even if a URL appears in the Shopify sitemap, Google doesn’t treat sitemaps as commands. They’re just hints. Proper status codes and noindex carry more weight.

Hope this helps! :grinning_face:

6

hi, here’s my take on both the questions you asked:

  1. as other members of the community also informed, Shopify doesn’t natively support converting 404 URLs to 401 Gones. in its place, create 301 redirects, which Shopify supports and even third-party redirect apps do. these 301 redirects also signal a permanent move to search engines such as google, and are helpful for preserving your store’s SEO value and rankings.
  2. shopify’s sitemap is automatically generated, and as they mention on this page, it updates automatically. so, you don’t need to take any further actions.

hope it helps