AuthorNicole Bingham
LinkedIn
How to Change URLs in Shopify
One of the main limitations of Shopify is with the set up of the URL structure. If you have moved to Shopify or are thinking of moving to Shopify, it may be a bit confusing. However, depending on what you are trying to achieve there are workarounds and even options to change Shopify’s current URL structures.
Product URLs
In Shopify, product URLs are within a product subfolder within the category path, for example:
https://uk.gymshark.com/collections/bottoms/products/gymshark-origin-seamless-leggings-black-marl
The canonical tag to this page will be set to the clean top-level version of this page, for the URL above it would be:
https://uk.gymshark.com/products/gymshark-origin-seamless-leggings-black-marl
However, this can be changed so that the category path is not included within the URL. To do this you will need to login to your backend and then go to the theme by editing the code in one of your product.liquid file under snippets. The name of the liquid that the code is under may vary for each store.
As you can see the URL structure is currently set to <href= “{{ product.url | within: collection}}”>”.
By removing “| within: collection” it will result in product links from product list pages linking to the top-level /products/product-url-key version of the URL which means it will match the canonical tag.
Collection URLs
- Collection URLs are in collection folders, which cannot be changed, for example https://uk.gymshark.com/collections/accessories
- Collection URL also cannot have / within the url as this will be replaced hyphen, therefore the following URL https://uk.gymshark.com/collections/t-shirts/tops/womens would be changed to https://uk.gymshark.com/collections/t-shirts-tops/womens
- Another limitation to Shopify collection URL structure is that it does not support a parent child relationship in the back so for example inheriting visual merchandising logic from the parent.
However, one way to overcome this and allow hierarchical URLs is to use tags or filtered pages for an additional layer. For example: https://uk.gymshark.com/collections/sports-bras/womens
This is done by using a tag and implementing content and metadata into the page. This allows the page to emulate a collection from an SEO perspective only but not a management perspective. However, this will limit how customisable and flexible these pages will be. For example sorting of product, this tactic would also not be doable on a large scale.
If you are wanting more information on Shopify – take a look at our ultimate guide to Shopify or get in touch with us with any Shopify questions!
