A 404 error in Shopify occurs when a user or search engine tries to access a URL that does not exist on your site. This happens when products are deleted without redirects, URLs are changed, links are mistyped, or when pages are unpublished. The server returns a "Page Not Found" message, creating a dead end for visitors.
The Doc 404 Shopify app automatically detects these errors and provides real-time monitoring to help you manage them before they affect your store's performance.
Common Causes of 404 Errors in Shopify
Understanding what causes 404 errors helps you prevent them. Deleted products or collections are the most frequent cause, especially when a product is discontinued and its page is removed without setting up a redirect. Any existing links to that product will immediately break.
Changed URLs create another major source of 404 errors. When you modify a product's URL handle or restructure your site, the old URL becomes invalid unless you create a 301 redirect. This issue frequently occurs after store redesigns or platform migrations.
Broken internal and external links also generate 404 errors. A typo in your own navigation, an outdated link from a marketing campaign, or an old backlink from another website can all send visitors to non-existent pages.
Why 404 Errors Matter for Your Shopify Store
The impact on user experience is immediate and negative. Studies show that approximately 74% of users who encounter a 404 error will leave your site and may never return. Each broken link represents frustration for shoppers who expected to find a product, damaging trust in your brand.
Search engines view a high number of 404 errors as a sign of poor site maintenance. Google and other crawlers waste their limited crawl budget indexing non-existent pages instead of discovering your valuable content. This wasted crawl budget slows down how search engines find and rank your real pages.
Lost link equity compounds the SEO damage. External links from other websites pointing to broken pages on your store lose their SEO value completely. Without proper redirects, the authority these backlinks could provide simply disappears.
The direct impact on revenue is significant. Research on Google's Merch Shop found that desktop users who saw a 404 error had a 57.5% lower conversion rate than those who did not. Every broken link to a product page or popular collection is a missed sales opportunity and can break valuable referral traffic.
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