If you’re running an eCommerce store on Shopify, you’ve likely come across the term “handles” while setting up products, collections, or pages. But what exactly are Shopify handles, and why do they matter? Today, we’ll dive into the definition of Shopify handles, explore their purpose in your online store, and explain how you can effectively manage them to optimize your eCommerce business.
What Are Shopify Handles?
Simply put, a Shopify handle is a unique identifier used in the URL structure of your store’s products, collections, pages, or blog posts. Think of it as a simplified, SEO-friendly version of a name that Shopify automatically generates to help organize and locate content within your store. For example, if you create a product called “Organic Cotton T-Shirt,” Shopify might assign it a handle like organic-cotton-t-shirt. This handle then becomes part of the URL, such as https://www.yourstore.com/products/organic-cotton-t-shirt.
Handles are typically lowercase, with spaces replaced by hyphens and special characters stripped out to ensure compatibility with web standards. They’re designed to be clean and descriptive, making it easy for both search engines and customers to understand what a page is about. While Shopify generates these handles automatically based on the resource name you provide, you also have the flexibility to customize them to better suit your branding or SEO strategy.
What Are Shopify Handles Used For?
Shopify handles serve several purposes in your store, including:
- URL Structure and Navigation – Handles are an important part of your store’s URL structure. When a customer visits your site or a search engine crawls it, the handle helps define the specific page they’re accessing. For instance, a collection named “Summer Sale” might have a handle of summer-sale, resulting in a URL like https://www.yourstore.com/collections/summer-sale. This clear structure enhances user experience by making URLs intuitive and easy to share.
- SEO Optimization – A well-crafted handle can boost your store’s visibility on search engines. Since handles are part of the URL, they provide an opportunity to include relevant keywords that align with what your customers might search for. For example, a handle like best-running-shoes is more likely to rank higher for related queries than a generic or random string. Every store owner should have SEO in mind, and handles play a key role in creating search-friendly URLs.
- Resource Identification – Within your Shopify admin, handles act as unique identifiers. This ensures that no two products, collections, or pages share the same URL, avoiding confusion or broken links. Whether you’re managing a small store with a handful of products or a large catalog, handles keep everything organized behind the scenes.
- Customization and Branding – Handles give you a chance to reinforce your brand or make URLs simpler or more unique. While Shopify’s default handles are fine, if you want to tweak them to reflect your style or strategy—say, shortening organic-cotton-t-shirt to organic-tee, you can.
How Shopify Handles are Used
Now that you know what handles are and why they’re important, let’s explore how your store uses them and how you can manage them. Shopify makes this process straightforward, but there are best practices to keep in mind.
When you add a new product, collection, or page to your Shopify store, the platform automatically generates a handle based on the name you enter. For example, if you list a product as “Handmade Leather Wallet,” Shopify will create a handle like handmade-leather-wallet. This default behavior saves time and ensures consistency, but it’s just the starting point—you’re not locked into these auto-generated handles.
Shopify allows you to customize handles to better fit your needs. Here’s how you can edit a product handle, for instance:
- Log in to Your Shopify Admin: Head to your store’s admin dashboard.
- Navigate to Products: Click on “Products” and select the item you want to edit.
- Access the Search Engine Listing Preview: Scroll down to the “Search engine listing preview” section on the product page.
- Edit Website SEO: Click “Edit website SEO” to reveal the “URL and handle” field.
- Modify the Handle: Update the handle—for example, change handmade-leather-wallet to leather-wallet—then save your changes.
If you’re editing a handle after the product is live, Shopify can automatically create a redirect from the old URL to the new one, preventing broken links and preserving SEO value. This feature is especially handy if you’re refining your store’s structure over time.
Best Practices for Managing Shopify Handles
To get the most out of Shopify handles, consider these tips recommended by Shopify:
- Keep It Simple and Descriptive: Aim for handles that clearly reflect the resource while staying concise. A handle like blue-sneakers is better than product-12345 for both customers and search engines.
- Use Keywords Wisely: Incorporate relevant keywords to improve SEO, but avoid keyword stuffing. For example, mens-running-shoes works better than mens-best-top-running-shoes.
- Avoid Special Characters: Stick to letters, numbers, and hyphens. Shopify will strip out characters like apostrophes or slashes anyway, so keep it clean from the start.
- Monitor for Duplicates: If you manually edit handles, ensure they remain unique. Shopify won’t let two resources share the same handle, but double-checking prevents errors.
- Plan for Redirects: When updating handles on live pages, use Shopify’s redirect feature to maintain link integrity and customer trust.
Shopify handles might seem like a small detail, but they’re a key element of your store’s performance. They influence how easily customers find your products, how well your site ranks on Google, and how smoothly your backend operates. By understanding and managing handles effectively, you’re not just tweaking URLs—you’re setting your store up for long-term growth.
Take a moment to review your best-selling products current handles in your Shopify admin today. Are they clear? Are they helping your SEO? A few small adjustments could make a big difference in how your store performs.
Scott Sanfilippo began his eCommerce journey in 1994 by co-founding one of the Internet’s first online retailers, TheFerretStore.com, which was acquired by PetCo in 2006. In 2001, he co-founded the eCommerce design and marketing firm Solid Cactus, which was acquired by web.com in 2009. Today, Scott is the General Manager of Your Store Wizards and lives in Delray Beach, FL. Scott can be contacted at scott@yourstorewizards.com.