AuthorAntonio Wedral
LinkedIn
Why should you change your URL structure on BigCommerce?
There are many reasons we’d recommend that you customise your URLs, for example:
- Create SEO-friendly URLs – we don’t like lots of subfolders if they’re unnecessary, random numbers, & ultimately we want the URL to simply state what the page is about which sometimes doesn’t need a long URL string
- You’re migrating from another platform & want to keep the structure you currently have, so you may be looking for a way to maintain the URL structure to reduce the need for redirects
- Changing/adding international folders e.g. /gb
On BigCommerce, you can change URLs by accessing URL structure settings which can be found by going to Store Setup > Store Settings, then the URL structure tab.
Below, we’ll go through how to change individual page type URLs on BigCommerce.
How to change a product URL on BigCommerce
When you’re on the URL structure tab, go to Product URL settings.
On here, you’ll be presented with 4 options:
- “SEO Optimised (Short)” — if you choose this setting then your product URL will only have the products name in it, e.g. for a beauty eCommerce site: yoursite.com/lip-liner
- “SEO Optimised (Long)” — this setting will add “products/” as a URL subfolder, as well as your product name e.g. yoursite.com/products/lip-liner
- “SEO Optimised (Category)” — this setting will add the category name as a subfolder before the product name e.g. yoursite.com/lips/lip-liner
- “Custom” — this will allow you to configure the product URL structure by using what BigCommerce calls “placeholders”. These placeholders for product pages are:
- %productname% — the name of the product
- %category% — the first category this product appears in
- %sku% — the product code/SKU
- %upc% — the product UPC (Universal Product Code)
Amend as necessary, save, click “Update Product URLs” & choose which URLs to update. Choose the option that you want to, and then check the box to create a 301 redirect.
How to change a category URL on BigCommerce
If you’re looking to change your category URL structure, you’ll want to follow the above steps but go to “Category URL settings” as opposed to the product settings. The 3 structure settings you’ll be presented with include:
- “SEO Optimised (Short)” — changing this setting will mean that all category URLs only use the category name e.g. yoursite.com/lips
- “SEO Optimised (Long)” — the URL includes the word “categories” as a URL subfolder as well as the category name e.g. yoursite.com/categories/lips
- “Custom” — similarly to the product URLs, this setting allows you to configure the URLs to be how you want them using specific placeholders which for category URLs are:
- %categoryname% — the name of the category
- %parent% — the name of the parent category
Amend as necessary, save, click “Update Category URLs” & choose which URLs to update. Choose the option that you want to, and then check the box to create a 301 redirect.
How to change any other web page URL on BigCommerce
Similarly to the above steps, you should then go to “web page URL settings”.
You will then be presented with 3 options:
- “SEO Optimised (Short)” — changing this setting will make only the page title appear in the URL e.g. yoursite.com/about-us
- “SEO Optimised (Long)” — the URL structure includes “pages” as a subfolder e.g. yoursite.com/pages/about-us
- “Custom” — similarly to the product & category URLs, this setting allows you to configure the URLs to be how you want them using specific placeholders which for web page URLs area
- %pagename% — the name of the page
- %parent% — the name of the parent page
Amend as necessary, save, click “Update Page URLs” & choose which URLs to update. Choose the option that you want to, and then check the box to create a 301 redirect.
If you struggle with this or have any other SEO requirements for your BigCommerce platform, make sure to reach out to us below.
Alternatively, read more about how to change title tags on BigCommerce today here.
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