Subdomain indexing problem - Markets shopify

Store Design
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Topic summary

A Shopify store owner is experiencing 6,400+ 404 errors in Google Search Console, primarily from subdomain URLs (like /be-be, /de-de) created by Shopify Markets. Despite attempting to remove these subdomains through Markets settings and revalidating in Search Console, the errors persist.

Proposed Solutions:

  • Set up URL redirects for removed pages, as 404 errors indicate Google cannot find those URLs. The robots.txt file won’t resolve already-indexed pages.
  • Purchase separate country-specific domains for each Markets location and prioritize the primary domain, which successfully eliminated similar errors for one user.

Current Status: The issue remains unresolved for the original poster, with the discussion seeking additional solutions for handling the large volume of broken subdomain links.

Summarized with AI on November 2. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hello to the Shopify community.

I’m writing to you because I’m having a big problem with my www.denaive.com site.

My Google Search Console is showing me 6400 pages with 404 errors (broken links). The vast majority of the links are sub-domains such as www.denaive.com/be-be or www.denaive/de-de

These sub-domains were created as part of Markets shopify. I’ve tried to remove these sub-domains in Markets, and I’ve re-run a validation of the corrections on Google Search Console.

It’s still catching 404 errors and I can’t resolve them.

Do you know a solution to this? I suppose it might be possible to use the txt robot to tell Google not to follow these links any more, but that concerns a very large number of URLs!

I’d be delighted to hear your answers,

Thanks in advance,
Max COSTA

2

nobody have news?

3

Hey @MaxCosta

If you haven’t already, you need to set up redirects for any URLs that you’ve removed.

The 404 errors is just Google’s way of saying "we can’t find that page. If there’s a correct page, please set up a redirect, otherwise we’ll eventually remove the URL from indexing at some point in the future. "

The robots.txt file doesn’t change what’s already indexed.

This article explains how to setup redirects in Shopify https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/menus-and-links/url-redirect

4

Hi Max,

I had a similar issue with my Shopify store when using Markets. I tried several solutions, but the only one that worked for me was purchasing new domains for each country where I had Markets active. I prioritized my primary domain and set up the others to handle the specific markets, which drastically reduced and almost eliminated all the broken link errors in Google Search Console.

It might not be the perfect solution for everyone, but it worked for me, and it could be worth trying in your case. Best of luck, and feel free to ask if you need more details on how I implemented this!

Best regards,

Renato