Your domain is your store’s address on the internet, the URL customers type, click, or search to find you. Every Shopify store starts with a free myshopify.com address, but connecting a custom domain is one of the first things worth doing during setup. It looks more professional, builds customer trust, and gives you an address that belongs to you regardless of platform.

URLs are the full addresses of every individual page in your store. Your domain is the foundation; URLs are everything built on top of it, including product pages, collections, blog posts, and more. Being deliberate about how you name things during setup matters, because those names become your URLs, and your URLs affect both search rankings and how easy your store is to navigate.

URL redirects are what you use when addresses change. Rename a product, restructure a collection, or migrate from another platform, and a redirect catches anyone visiting the old address and sends them to the right place, preserving traffic and search rankings in the process.

This guide covers everything you need to manage domains and URLs in Shopify, from connecting your first domain to building a redirect structure that keeps your store working correctly as it grows.

Domains

Changing your Shopify domain

Every Shopify store starts with a myshopify.com address, but most stores switch to a custom domain as soon as they’re ready to look professional. If you’ve already done that and need to change it due to rebranding, a new business name, or simply upgrading to a better URL, the process involves more than just swapping one domain for another. The guide on how to change a Shopify domain walks through how to update your primary domain in Shopify, what happens to your old domain after the switch, and how to set up redirects so anyone visiting the old address lands in the right place.

Connecting a domain to Shopify

If you’ve purchased a domain through a third-party registrar like GoDaddy, Namecheap, or Google Domains, you’ll need to point it at your Shopify store before it does anything useful. The guide on how to connect a domain to Shopify covers both sides of that process: what to change in your registrar’s DNS settings and how to verify the connection inside your Shopify admin login once the changes have propagated.

Creating a subdomain on Shopify

A subdomain lets you run a separate section of your web presence under the same root domain, such as a blog on blog.yourdomain.com, a wholesale portal on wholesale.yourdomain.com, or a landing page on launch.yourdomain.com. The guide on how to create a subdomain on Shopify walks through how to set one up in both your domain registrar’s DNS settings and your Shopify admin, and what to check if it isn’t resolving correctly after setup.

Disabling automatic domain renewal

If you purchased your domain through Shopify, it renews automatically by default. There are legitimate reasons to turn this off, including migrating to another registrar, shutting down the store, or wanting manual control over the renewal decision. The guide on how to disable automatic domain renewal covers where to find this setting and what to do before disabling it so you don’t accidentally lose a domain you still need.

Enabling automatic domain renewal

If you previously turned off automatic renewal or want to make sure your domain never lapses, turning it back on takes just a few clicks. The guide on how to enable automatic domain renewal walks through how to switch it on in your Shopify admin and why keeping it enabled is usually the safer default for any domain tied to a live store.

URL Redirects

Creating a URL redirect

A URL redirect tells Shopify that when someone visits one address, they should automatically be sent to another. You’ll need this any time a URL changes, whether a product gets a new handle, a collection is renamed, or a page is moved. Without a redirect, anyone visiting the old URL hits a 404. The guide on how to create a URL redirect on Shopify covers how to add redirects through the Shopify admin and what to keep in mind when deciding where each one should point.

Deleting URL redirects

Redirects that point to pages that no longer exist, or that were set up for campaigns long since finished, add clutter and can create redirect chains that slow things down. The guide on how to delete URL redirects individually on Shopify walks through how to find and remove specific redirects from your admin without affecting the ones you still need.

Editing URL redirects

If a redirect is pointing to the wrong destination, or the destination URL has since changed, you’ll need to update it rather than delete and recreate it. The guide on how to edit URL redirects on Shopify covers how to find a specific redirect and update either the source URL, the destination, or both, and what to check afterward to confirm it’s working correctly.

Exporting your URL redirects

If you’re migrating to a new Shopify store, auditing your redirect structure, or want a backup of your current setup, exporting gives you a clean CSV of every redirect you have. The guide on how to export your URL redirects on Shopify walks through how to download the full list from your admin and what the exported file contains so you know how to work with it.

Importing URL redirects

When you’re migrating from another platform or setting up a large batch of redirects at once, importing via CSV is far faster than adding them one by one. The guide on how to import your URL redirects on Shopify covers how to format the CSV file correctly and how to upload it to your Shopify admin without errors.

Filtering URL redirects by date

If you have a large redirect list and need to find redirects created during a specific period, whether to audit a migration, review changes made after a site update, or clean up old campaign redirects, filtering by date makes that manageable. The guide on how to filter URL redirects by date on Shopify walks through how to use the date filter in the redirects section of your Shopify admin to narrow your list down quickly.

Adding a redirect to a shareable link

Shareable links with built-in redirects let you send customers to a specific page while tracking where they came from or applying a discount automatically. The guide on how to add a redirect to a shareable link on Shopify covers how to create these links and when they’re useful, whether for influencer campaigns, email marketing, or any situation where you want a clean, purposeful URL that does more than just point somewhere.

When you need more than Shopify’s built-in redirect admin

Shopify’s admin covers manual 301s one at a time, imports a CSV, and lets you export the list. What it does not do is monitor live 404 traffic or auto-match orphaned URLs to the closest live page. On a store with a large catalog, frequent SKU rotation, or a recent theme or platform migration, that gap turns into a steady leak of search-referred visits. SC Easy Redirects fills it: AI-driven 404 recovery, bulk 301 management and a live view of which URLs are getting hit. Its usage pattern across Shopify stores is on its stats page.