Editing Product Handle URL Fields

You can use Ablestar Bulk Product Editor to modify product handles, or URL structures, in bulk. The 'product handle' is a unique identifier for each product and originally created based on your product's title.

When you create a product, Shopify generates a unique URL / handle structure to include the name of your product, without capitals and using dashes instead of spaces. Similar to:

Typically, you have the ability to edit the Shopify product handle and URL of each product, one by one, in the 'search engine listing' area of each product page:

To edit multiple products in bulk, choose if you prefer the 'In-App Edit' or 'Spreadsheet' method:

1. In-App Edits

Ways to Change the Handle

The handle field is similar to any other text field except that it will be converted to the handle format (all lowercase and dashes for spaces). You can choose several options from the 'How to edit' field:

• Setting the handle to a value: this option will replace all existing handle data
• Adding text to the end of handle: this option retains the existing data and adds new data to the end of the handle
• Searching and replacing text in the handle: if you need to change a small portion of the handle, this will allow you to search and replace

To learn more, you can look at the list of all the ways to edit text fields.

Creating Redirects

Checking the 'Create web redirects to the new handles' will create redirects in Shopify to the new product URLs.

For example, if you change the handle from old-handle → new-handle , a user going to https://mystore.com/products/old-handle would get redirected to https://myshopify.com/products/new-handle , without any 404 errors.

This will help preserve any SEO or backlinks you have built up.

Including Dynamic Values in the Handle

Using dynamic values, or placeholders, can be especially useful for handle edits as they can allow you to do things like including the vendor name or product title in the handle.

Avoid Duplicate Handles

We want to ensure that any time you modify handles, the checkbox for 'Make sure handle is unique' is always checked by default. The system will check for duplicate handles or URL structure and then add a random 4-digit code to the end to avoid duplicates if that handle already exists.

2. Spreadsheet Edits

Alternately, the spreadsheet method works if you are modifying a bulk set of pages that have not yet seen user traffic, and there is no concern about redirects.

All new or modified handle data that is found on the spreadsheet will be processed to replace or add more detail to your store. The system can recognize when there are new handles present (or even case changes present) and will modify those items as specified.

You can also Learn how to skip unchanged values and increase speed on uploads.

✅ Tips and Troubleshooting

• We recommend using the In-App Edit method for bulk URL editing, especially if you need to redirect users from existing traffic
• If your product title no longer matches the URL handle, you can adjust those to match them up with the Fixing Shopify URLs related article

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