PrestaShop 404 errors: what to redirect and what to leave alone
You fix PrestaShop 404 errors selectively: URLs with traffic or links you redirect with a 301 to the closest equivalent, meaning the product's successor or its category. URLs with no traffic and no equivalent you leave as a 404 or set to 410. Redirecting everything to the home page does more harm than good.
Author: The TellMyShop team. A guide for PrestaShop store owners: the cause, the manual fix and the same work in a chat conversation.
Last updated: · 5 min read
Where do 404 errors in a PrestaShop store come from?
From four typical situations, and each needs a different response. Most often it is a withdrawn product someone deleted instead of disabling. Second comes a changed friendly URL: you correct the product name, PrestaShop changes the URL, and the old one stops working. Then there are migrations from another platform and typos in links, including in your own newsletters.
An important difference: in PrestaShop the built-in redirect works only for a disabled product, not a deleted one. On the product page you set what the customer should see at the old URL, and it takes effect once the product is disabled. A deleted product no longer has a product page, so there is nowhere to set a redirect. Krystian Podemski describes this well, and module.pl shows what happens to the URL after deletion (both in Polish).
What do you do with each URL? A decision table
You decide for each URL separately, but the rules are simple.
| Situation | Response | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Product withdrawn, successor exists | 301 to the successor | the customer gets what they were looking for, the ranking moves to the new URL |
| Product withdrawn, no successor | 301 to the product's category | the closest equivalent, the customer chooses from there |
| Product will return after the season | 302 to the category, or the product stays with availability information | a permanent 301 would move the ranking for good |
| Product temporarily out of stock | 200, the product stays visible | this is not an error, you redirect nothing |
| Changed product or category URL | 301 from the old to the new | the same content at a new URL |
| URL with no traffic and no equivalent | 404 or 410 | 410 tells Google plainly that the page will not return |
| Typo in an external link, with traffic | 301 to the right page | you rescue visits from someone else's link |
Google describes this in its guides to redirects and HTTP status codes. Jash has collected more strategies for unavailable products (in Polish).
Why is redirecting everything to the home page a mistake?
Because Google recognises that the home page does not answer the query and often treats such a redirect as a soft 404. The URL still passes on no ranking, and you feel the problem has gone. A customer who clicked a link to a specific lamp lands on the home page and does not know what happened.
Modules that “redirect all 404s to the home page” are tempting, because they clear the report in one click. The report is clean, but the problem remains. Better to have twenty honest 404 errors than two thousand redirects to nowhere.
How do you fix 404 errors step by step?
- Collect the list. The stats module for pages not found in the back office shows URLs with the number of visits and the referring page. Add the Pages report from Google Search Console.
- Sort by traffic. Start with the URLs that have the most visits or external links. URLs with one visit a year ago you can skip.
- Choose a response from the table for each URL. Successor, category, 410 or nothing.
- Set up the redirects. For disabled products on their product page, for other URLs in a redirect module.
- Check every old URL. Open it in the browser and make sure you land on the target straight away, without a chain of several redirects.
- Come back to the report in a month. New 404 errors appear with every change in the catalogue.
How does the chat choose a target for each old URL?
You ask for a 404 report and a plan. Your chat (Claude or ChatGPT) reads the URLs from the stats module, matches each one with a suggested target and shows it all in a table. The report and plan work in TellMyShop Free. In TellMyShop Pro the chat saves the redirects after your approval, up to 100 at once.
You: Show me the most frequent 404 errors from the last few weeks and suggest what to do with them.
Your chat: The most visited URLs with no page are 12 entries. The first three:
/summer-sale, 9 visits, a sale page with no equivalent. I suggest leaving the 404.
You: Do the first two.
Your chat: Preview: 2 redirects with 301. Both old URLs return 404 now, both targets work, there are no chains. I'll save after your approval and check each old URL after saving.
Card status: waiting for your “yes”/lanterns/215-nora-lantern.html, 84 visits, product deleted. Successor: Nora II lantern.
old version: 404 not found
new version: 301 to Nora II lantern
/solar-garden-lighting, 31 visits, the category changed its URL.
old version: 404 not found
new version: 301 to Garden lighting > Solar
Before saving, the module checks that the old URL really returns an error and the target works, and it rejects redirect loops. You can undo each redirect from the change history. You will find example requests in the use cases plan for old URLs, redirecting any URL and withdrawing a product without losing traffic.
How do you avoid creating new 404 errors?
Change URLs rarely and always with a redirect. Disable permanently withdrawn products and set a redirect for them, instead of deleting them. Before migrating the store, prepare a list of old URLs and their new equivalents.
If the product disappearing from the store was not intentional, that is a different problem. We describe it in the article product not showing in a PrestaShop store. You can run a broader SEO review of the store in TellMyShop Free.
Questions and answers
Do 404 errors lower the whole store's ranking in Google?
Not on their own. Google treats a 404 as a normal signal that a page does not exist. They only hurt when the vanished URL had traffic or links from other sites. Then you lose customers who land on an empty page, and the value of those links. That is why you redirect URLs with traffic and leave the rest.
Can I redirect all 404 errors to the home page?
Better not. Google often treats such a redirect as a soft 404, because the home page does not answer what the customer was looking for. The customer is confused too. Redirect to the closest equivalent: the product's successor or its category. When there is no equivalent, leave the 404 or set a 410.
What is the difference between 301 and 302?
301 is a permanent redirect: Google moves the old URL's ranking to the new one. 302 is temporary, and you use it when the product will come back, for example after the season. When a product is withdrawn for good, choose a 301 to its successor or to the category.
Where do I get the list of URLs with a 404 error in PrestaShop?
From two places. In the back office there is a stats module for pages not found, which records URLs, the number of visits and the referring page. The second source is the Pages report in Google Search Console. The module shows where customers land, and Search Console which URLs Google knows.
What should I do with a product that is temporarily out of stock?
Do not redirect anything. A temporarily unavailable product stays at its URL with a 200 response and availability information. Redirecting or disabling the product for a few weeks costs more ranking than it gains. A redirect only makes sense when the product is withdrawn permanently.
PrestaShop is a registered trademark of PrestaShop SA. Claude is a trademark of Anthropic PBC. ChatGPT and OpenAI are trademarks of OpenAI. TellMyShop is not affiliated with these companies.