SEO URLs, Meta Tags, and Redirects

The prefixes cms, brand, and news can be changed; see URL prefixes. The default settings are located under Settings → SEO / SEA → SEO Settings:

The “Rewrite_V1.5” variant with URLs such as /artikelname-p-12.html is no longer used. Upon update, the store switches to “Rewrite” and redirects the old URLs via a 301redirect.from 4.10

The SEO settings with the factory defaults, ranging from the SEO advanced settings to the redirect toggles and URL prefixes. Click to enlarge.

SEO Names in Other Languages

Each language has its own name and thus its own URL. If you leave the name of a category or product blank in a language, the store will use the text from the default language when saving. The English URL will then remain in German. The same applies to meta titles, meta descriptions, and keywords.

Therefore, translate the name—and, using “SEO Pro Settings,” also the “SEO URL”—in every language. When using DeepL for translations, the store generates the SEO name for the target language from the translated name and redirects to the updated URL.

• These guidelines apply to new stores. Older stores will retain blog and manufacturer so that their URLs remain the same.
• Use only lowercase letters, with no slashes or spaces. Terms like product or category are not allowed.
• The store redirects requests with the original prefix (blog, manufacturer, news, cms, badge) to the set prefix using a 301 redirect.
• It does not recognize any prefixes used in the interim. Therefore, change a prefix only once if possible.

In the “SEO” tab of the product editor, the Google search results preview shows you what the meta title and meta description will look like in search results as you type. Click to enlarge.

As a guideline, a title should be around 55 characters, and a description should be one to two sentences with about 110 to 155 characters. The search engine truncates longer texts in the search results. You can import meta texts for multiple products or categories at once via CSV; see Import & Export (CSV).

Static Store Pages and Home Page

Under Settings → SEO / SEA → Title & Meta Tags, you’ll find the values for the homepage: “Title (Store Name),” “Description,” “Keywords,” the general “Robots” setting, the favicon, and “og:image - Fallback” for the preview when sharing. The “Customize SEO Tags” tab applies to static store pages such as Special Offers, New Arrivals, or Contact:

1. Select the page under “Page Name.”
2. Enable “Status” and, if necessary, select “robots meta tag.”
3. For each language, enter the “SEO Name” (required), “Meta Tags – Title,” “Meta Tags – Description,” and “Meta Tags – Keywords,” then save.

Homepage, Products, Categories, CMS Pages, Manufacturers, and News are not listed there; maintain their text as shown in the table above. Changing the “SEO Name” of a shop page changes its URL without a redirect. The guide “Designing the Home Page” explains the texts for the home page itself (welcome text, SEO text).

Under “Title & Meta Tags,” you’ll find the title, description, keywords, and robots directive for the homepage, as well as the favicon and thumbnail image for sharing. Click to enlarge.

The general setting “Robots” is not a toggle to keep the entire store out of search engines: The store serves category, product, filter, and browse pages with index,follow. index,nofollow does not provide a filter.

You can view the automatic entries alongside your own under “SEO Redirects.” There, you can extend their expiration date if an old URL has many external links pointing to it.

The list of all SEO links: On the left is what the old URL belonged to (red = page deleted); on the right is the destination and the expiration date of the redirect. Click to enlarge.

The easiest way is directly from the edit screen

Products, categories, CMS pages, manufacturers, and news articles have an “SEO History” button in their edit screen and in the delete dialog. Clicking it opens the redirects for that page. When you click “Insert,” the “Affiliation” and “Link Name” fields for each language are already filled in. In the product form, the button appears only under “SEO Advanced Settings,” but it’s always visible in the delete dialog. When opened from the article form, the tabs are labeled “SEO Links for the Product” and “SEO Links Pointing to the Product”; the CSV import option isn’t available there.

When opened from the product form, the “Belonging” and “Link Name” fields are already filled in; you select the destination yourself—a category via the folder button. Click to enlarge.

The fields

When you save, the store converts the link name to SEO-friendly format as described under “SEO Names.” Therefore, it’s best to import old URLs with underscores via CSV. URLs with parameters (?id=…) or endings like .php or .htm require a rule in the .htaccess. Check URLs with umlauts in your browser after creating them. If a redirect isn’t working, we’ll help you set up a rule.

source,target,code
https://www.example.com/alte-kategorie/,https://www.example.com/bekleidung/,301
/alte_shirts/bio-shirt.html,/bekleidung/t-shirts/bio-shirt.html,301
/lng/en/old-shirt.html,/lng/en/clothing/organic-shirt.html,301

• The shop identifies the page type based on the address: .html for products, CMS pages, and news; a forward slash at the end for categories. /lng/en/ determines the language.
• The old URL must end with .html or a forward slash. Other URLs will end up in the “Unprocessed Lines” section with an .htaccess suggestion.
• The destination must be an existing page. It’s safest to create manufacturer destinations individually.
• The “ code ” column only affects the suggested .htaccess line. Entries from the SEO History always redirect with a 301 status code.
• A line containing an old address that has already been entered will replace the existing entry. The deletion date is set to one year after the import.
• You can change the ` .htaccess ` via FTP. We’ll help you with that.

Redirects can also be created, read, and deleted via the REST interface; see the API documentation.

SEO Automatic Redirect Behavior

Under Settings → SEO / SEA → SEO Settings → SEO Automatic Redirect Behavior, select one of three options:

Redirect inactive products to the category: If the product URLs include the category path, customers will be directed to the category when entering recommended. To set a specific destination, use the “SEO History” button to create an entry with this product as the associated item.

• The navigation and breadcrumbs link directly to the destination. Anyone who enters the category’s address will be redirected there via a 301 redirect.
• External links open in a new window in the navigation.
• Never select the category itself as the destination.
• Subcategories remain accessible. The redirected category itself is no longer listed in the category sitemap.from 4.9.34

Using the “Internal Link” page type, the category links to another destination in the store—in this case, the CMS page “Shipping and Payment.” Click to enlarge.

A line like ` Redirect /alt /neu ` in ` .htaccess ` without a status code is a 302. For permanent redirects, use a 301: ` Redirect 301 /alt /neu`. The status codes of existing lines are displayed in the “.htaccess SEO Links” tab.

• Sorting and filtering options within a category link to the category itself without any parameters.
• Pagination pages starting from page 2 link to themselves, since they display different products.
• A pagination page beyond the last page returns a 404.from 4.9.26

Products in Multiple Categories

If a product is listed in multiple categories, it needs a primary URL for the canonical tag and the sitemap. The store selects the active category with the lowest sort order. If the sort orders are the same, the category with the lowest ID wins—usually the category created first. This is why a product’s link sometimes shows a different category than expected.

Settings → SEO / SEA → SEO Settings → SEO: Allow Multiple Category Links determines how the store links in the other categories: “No” (default, recommended) always uses the primary URL, while “Yes” uses any valid category path.

You select the main category yourself in the product editor under the “Miscellaneous” tab in the Categories section: “Use this category as the main category for the product.” The line “Automatic: …” shows which category the store would otherwise use. The main category determines the category path, canonical tag, sitemap entry, and the category in price portal feeds.from 4.10

• The store links only to main URLs, without sort or filter parameters.
• If a language version is missing—for example, in an untranslated news article—it omits it.from 4.9.34
• To ensure the URLs differ by language, translate the names; see SEO Names.

For a multishop where each domain serves a market in a specific language, there are three fields under Settings → General → Multishop, all of which are disabled or empty by default:

These fields modify the hreflang and robots directives for all domains. Enable them only after consulting with us.

Settings

Under Settings → SEO / SEA → SEO Settings:

Under “SEO Sitemaps,” tabs 1 through 6 regenerate the files; the overview shows the status, size, and robots.txt. Click to enlarge.

• The file applies to the domain’s default language. The store caches it for 24 hours. If you save the fields, it regenerates the file.
• Categories for which “Link in XML sitemaps for search engines” is turned off are not included.
• A manually uploaded ` llms.txt ` file in the store directory takes precedence.
• Whether and how AI services use the file is determined by the providers.