Who this article is for: Plug In SEO users who want to find and fix broken links on their store. What you'll learn: How to use the Broken Links screen to identify broken URLs, understand how much traffic they're losing, and redirect them to the right page. |
What is the Broken Links screen?
The Broken Links screen in Plug In SEO shows you every URL on your store that is returning a 404 error (page not found). For each broken URL, you can see how many hits it has received — that number tells you how many times a real visitor (or search engine bot) tried to access that URL and landed on a dead end instead of a real page.
A high hit count means that URL is actively sending visitors away from your store, which hurts both your user experience and your SEO. Fixing it with a redirect sends those visitors to the right page instead.
Reviewing your broken links
Go to Broken Links in the Plug In SEO navigation. For each broken URL you'll see:
The broken URL path
The number of hits — how many times it was accessed
Two options: Ignore or Fix It
Ignore — use this for URLs that are clearly irrelevant (bots probing for common paths, old spam links, etc.) that you don't need to redirect anywhere.
Fix It — use this when the broken URL was a real page that moved, or when it's getting real visitor traffic that you want to recover.
Creating a redirect
Click Fix It next to the broken URL
A panel will open showing:
Broken Links / Fix Broken Links
Redirect for this URL: [the broken URL]
Redirect to: (Path Only)In the Redirect to field, enter the path you want to send visitors to — for example:
/collections/balloon-menuClick Fix to save the redirect
Once saved, anyone who visits the broken URL will be automatically sent to the new page.
Troubleshooting: redirect not saving
If you get an error when clicking Fix, the most common cause is that the destination URL you entered is already a redirect itself. Shopify does not allow chained redirects (redirect → redirect).
To fix this, use the full URL including your domain instead of just the path:
Instead of:
/collections/balloon-menu
This resolves the conflict and allows Shopify to save the redirect correctly.