Here are some common reasons why your URL redirects aren't working, as well as solutions on how to solve the problem.

1. The path URL your redirect originates from must be an inactive or "broken" (404) link.

Shopify does not allow URL redirects from active pages. The old page URL that you want to redirect users away from (the path URL) must be deleted or unpublished, and lead to a 404 page.

Visit the path URL in your browser to make sure you land on a 404 page:

If this is a product page, make sure the product is removed from your live store by changing it to a draft, archiving it, disabling the 'Online Store Channel', or deleting it entirely.

2. The target URL your redirect sends customers to must be an active page.

In your browser, visit the target URL link you have inputted into the Easy Redirects app to make sure it hasn't been misspelled or entered incorrectly. 

For example, if your target URL is /products/name-of-the-product, and your store domain is www.your-store.com, visit www.your-store.com/products/name-of-the-product. 

3. The path URL your redirect originates from cannot be a "hard coded" URL.

This is a fancy term that just means that Shopify does not support redirects from URLs that begin with any of the following prefixes:

/apps
/application
/cart
/carts
/orders
/shop
/services

Tip 👀: Read more about how Shopify redirects work.

4. If you are redirecting internally (within a single website), make sure your URLs are formatted correctly.

They must be formatted as relative URLs like the following, with a forward slash, '/' at the beginning:

Redirect From: /products/name-of-the-product

Redirect To: /collections/name-of-collection

Note: /collections/name-of-collection/products/name-of-the-product is same URL as /products/name-of-the-product

5. If you're redirecting to an external website, your target URL must be formatted as a full URL.

If you want customers to be redirected to a different website domain, the target URL should include the full link to the new website. For example: 

Redirect From: /products/name-of-the-product

Redirect To: https://target-website.com/products/name-of-the-product

6. If you're getting the error of "Redirect creation failed. Make sure the path is unique." check that you haven't already created this redirect previously.

In your browser, visit the path URL link you have inputted into the Easy Redirects app to make sure it doesn't already redirect you to a different URL. 

For example, if your path URL is /products/name-of-the-product, and you store domain is www.your-store.com, visit www.your-store.com/products/name-of-the-product.

If you are redirected and do not land on a 404 page, this means a redirection already exists with this path. If it is not redirecting to your desired target page, it won't be possible to redirect it to a different one unless you delete the existing redirection.

You can check if a redirect already exists by going to Online Store > Navigation > View URL redirects.

7. If you're getting the error of "Redirect already exists" check that you haven't already created a redirect with this path previously.

If you want to make changes, you can edit the existing redirect by clicking on the Edit button.

Check if a redirect already exists by going to Online Store > Navigation > View URL redirects.

If you are still having troubles, feel free to contact our friendly support team and they will do it for you.