How can I remove '/Pages' from my store's URL?

Store Design

Topic summary

Store owners are frustrated by Shopify’s mandatory URL structure that includes /pages, /collections, and /products in URLs. Users want cleaner URLs (e.g., site.com/about-us instead of site.com/pages/about-us) for SEO benefits and professional appearance.

Key SEO concerns:

  • Forced URL paths make pages appear as subcategories to Google, reducing ranking potential
  • Competitors on other platforms with cleaner URLs rank higher
  • URL structure affects keyword relevance and click-through rates
  • Makes site migrations from other platforms extremely difficult

Shopify’s response:

  • Feature request logged but no timeline provided (repeatedly stated over 3+ years)
  • Staff claim feedback is being collected and forwarded to developers
  • No concrete updates or commitment to implementation
  • Redirects can mask URLs when sharing but don’t change actual structure

Community reaction:

  • Thread spans 5+ years (2018-2023+) with 43k+ views and 170+ replies
  • Multiple users threatening to switch platforms (BigCommerce, WordPress, Magento)
  • Growing frustration over lack of transparency and progress
  • Some note Shopify’s own website doesn’t use /pages structure
  • Users feel dismissed and question platform’s commitment to professional SEO needs

Status: Unresolved. No workaround exists to actually remove these URL segments, only redirects to mask them.

Summarized with AI on November 2. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
2

Hi, there!

Lisa here from the Social Care Team. The navigation redirect will not help with what you’re trying to achieve by removing ‘pages’ in your URL. Please try the instructions in this document here to update the path to the target URL.

When you provide a full URL as the value of the path property, it will be saved as an absolute path without the domain. For example, “path”: "http://www.johns-apparel.com/springwear" will be saved as “path”: “springwear”.

You then need to create a manual redirect by allocating this path to its target:

POST /admin/redirects.json
{
  "redirect": {
    "path": "/about-us",
    "target": "/pages/about-us"
  }
}

Hopefully, this will help mask the ‘pages’ and allow you to just show .com/about-us when sharing your page.

Best of luck!

  • Lisa
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