Redirect Rules with SM Quick Redirects & 404s – The Smarter Way to Manage Broken Links

Redirects are essential for maintaining SEO and a seamless customer experience—especially when products are removed, blogs are restructured, or URLs change. SM Quick Redirects & 404s automates redirect creation through smart rules, live 404 detection, and pattern-based logic.

What Are Redirect Rules?

In SM Quick Redirects, redirect rules let you define flexible redirection logic using wildcards or regex. Instead of manually adding every redirect, rules let you automate common URL structures like:

  • Redirect all /collections/sale-* pages to /collections/clearance
  • Redirect /blog/* to /news/*
  • Redirect deleted products to their parent collection

Why Use Rules?

Rules save time and prevent SEO loss. Instead of handling each 404 manually, you can automate resolution across your Shopify store. Redirect rules help you:

  • Automatically handle new 404s
  • Redirect URL patterns from old to new structure
  • Preserve SEO ranking during migrations or reorganizations
  • Improve customer experience by avoiding dead-ends

Rule Features in SM Quick Redirects

Live 404 Triggers

Any time a customer or crawler hits a 404 page, SM Quick Redirects logs it instantly. You can then apply rules or create a manual redirect—no waiting for reports.

Pattern-Based Matching (Regex or Wildcards)

Create flexible rules using wildcards or regular expressions (regex):

  • /collections/old-* → /collections/new-sale
  • /blog/* → /news/*
  • /products/sku-* → /collections/featured

Auto-Mapping on Product or Collection Deletion

When a product or collection is deleted, SM Quick Redirects can automatically redirect it to:

  • The parent collection
  • A specified fallback URL (like the homepage or sale page)

Rule Priorities

If more than one rule matches a URL, you can set which rules take precedence using priority ordering. This ensures accurate redirection even in complex cases.

Combine Rules with Bulk CSV Import

Rules work alongside our powerful CSV import feature. Use CSV for fixed redirects and apply rules for anything not covered in the file—perfect for large migrations or redesigns.

Rule Example: Migrating Blog URLs

If your blog changed from /blog/* to /news/*, you can set a rule:

  • Source pattern: /blog/(.*)
  • Target pattern: /news/$1
  • Enable regex: ✅

Now, a URL like /blog/our-story automatically redirects to /news/our-story.

Real-Time Suggestions & Testing

When creating a redirect rule, SM Quick Redirects shows real-time suggestions from your store’s URL structure. You can preview matches and test redirects before publishing them live.

Set Alerts for New 404s

Turn on email alerts to get notified when a new 404 is detected and doesn’t match any rule. This ensures you can quickly create a redirect or add a new rule to cover the case.

Final Thoughts

SM Quick Redirects & 404s makes redirect management intelligent and hands-free. With smart rules, regex support, live 404 detection, and automation tools, you can keep your Shopify store SEO-friendly and user-friendly with ease.

Ready to automate your redirects? Try SM Quick Redirects & 404s now →

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