Fix Broken Links on WooCommerce

Why WooCommerce stores have more broken links than regular sites

Standard WordPress sites create broken links when pages are deleted or renamed. WooCommerce stores face the same issues, but at a higher frequency and scale:

• Seasonal products — products active in winter and removed in spring, creating dead URLs with existing backlinks and internal links.
• Discontinued products — products permanently removed from the catalogue without redirecting their URLs.
• Out-of-stock items set to “private” — hidden from the shop but returning 404s to anyone with a direct link or bookmark.
• Category restructures — renaming or merging categories breaks all links to the old URLs.
• Plugin/theme changes — some updates alter the URL structure for products or categories.

Each of these creates broken links that waste crawl budget, bleed link equity, and frustrate customers.

How broken product links affect SEO

When Google crawls a product category page and finds five internal links pointing to deleted products, it wastes five crawl requests on 404s. It also does not pass any of the category page’s authority to those missing products. If any of those products had external backlinks from review sites, comparison sites, or social media, all that link equity is gone. Read more about how broken links affect SEO.

The right redirect for each WooCommerce scenario

• Deleted product with a direct replacement → redirect to the new product URL.
• Discontinued product, no replacement → redirect to the parent category (e.g. /shop/shoes/).
• Renamed product → redirect old slug to new slug (this should happen automatically in WooCommerce if you update the permalink, but it often does not for older products).
• Deleted category → redirect to the closest parent category or the main shop page.
• Seasonal sale page → redirect to the main sale category or the homepage during off-season, then re-activate the page for the next season.

How to find broken links in WooCommerce

1. Install FixLinks AI from your WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to the FixLinks AI dashboard and click Run Crawl. It scans every product page, category, shop page, and post.
3. Review the list of broken URLs. Each entry shows the dead URL, where it was linked from, and the AI-suggested redirect destination.
4. Approve the suggestions and click Apply All. The 301 redirects go live immediately.

FixLinks AI Pro supports WooCommerce crawls fully and can run on a schedule — useful if your catalogue changes frequently.

Preventing WooCommerce broken links going forward

• Before deleting a product, check if any other pages link to it (FixLinks AI shows the source of every internal link).
• Set up redirects before removing products, not after.
• For seasonal products, archive them rather than deleting them, or set up the redirect before you take the page down.
• Add WooCommerce broken link audits to your monthly WordPress SEO maintenance checklist.

Frequently asked questions

What happens to product URLs when I delete a WooCommerce product?

When you delete a WooCommerce product, its URL immediately returns a 404 error. Any internal links pointing to it, external backlinks from other sites, and bookmarks from customers all break. You should redirect the deleted product URL to the most relevant replacement product or category page.

How do WooCommerce broken links affect sales?

Directly: a customer clicking a broken product link sees a 404 and typically leaves. Indirectly: the broken link wastes crawl budget, loses link equity from any external backlinks, and lowers the search rankings of related pages. Both effects reduce revenue.

What should I redirect a deleted WooCommerce product to?

Redirect to the most relevant live page: a replacement product (if one exists), the parent category page (e.g. /shop/t-shirts/ instead of the deleted /shop/t-shirts/blue-v-neck/), or a curated alternatives page. Never redirect to the homepage — Google treats those as soft 404s.

Is FixLinks AI compatible with WooCommerce?

Yes. FixLinks AI Pro is fully compatible with WooCommerce and crawls product pages, category pages, and shop pages to find broken links. It uses AI to suggest the best 301 redirect for each deleted or renamed product URL.