Linked URLs on sites that left Magento, Oct 2026
| Group | Sites | Linked URLs | 404 or 410 | Blocked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| .html URLs | 59 | 577 | 35.4% | 6.8% |
| .html URLs that redirect | 53 | 388 | 19.1% | 1.0% |
| .html URLs with no redirect | 34 | 189 | 68.8% | 18.5% |
| Non-.html URLs | 89 | 1,510 | 27.0% | 8.0% |
Source: PageSpeed Matters, Oct 2026. Blocked means a 401, 402, 403 or 429 response.
Summary
Magento stores usually have product and category URLs that end in .html. When a store leaves Magento, those addresses rarely survive as they were, so every one needs a redirect. Any link from another site that points at an old .html URL without a redirect now lands on a dead page, and the value that link carried is lost.
We checked how often that happens on stores that left Magento and now run on Shopify. Of 577 old .html URLs that still have live backlinks, on 59 sites, 35.4% now return a 404 or 410. More than a third of the linked .html pages on these stores are dead.
What we measured
We started from 720 sites in the HTTP Archive crawl of the top 1M sites that switched platform, and 18,447 of their old URLs that still have live backlinks. For this study we kept the sites that left Magento and are now on Shopify, and split their linked URLs into .html paths and everything else. We requested each URL in October 2026, followed any redirects, and recorded the final response.
A URL counts as dead when the final response is a 404 or 410. Blocked means a 401, 402, 403 or 429 response, so we could not see the page. Only URLs with live backlinks were checked, so the results describe the old URLs that matter most for link equity, not every page the old store had. With 59 sites in the .html group, this is a moderate sample, and the figures are best read as a clear direction rather than a precise rate for every Magento move.
More than a third of old .html links are dead
Of the 577 linked .html URLs on 59 former Magento sites, 35.4% return a 404 or 410. Another 6.8% are blocked, so we could not confirm what a visitor or crawler would see.
Every one of these URLs has at least one live link from another site. When the page behind it is gone, that link stops sending visitors and stops passing value to the store. Across these stores, more than a third of the links earned by old .html product and category pages now point at nothing.
35.4%
Share of backlinked .html URLs on sites that left Magento for Shopify that now return a 404 or 410.
The .html suffix is the risk
Linked URLs without the .html suffix fare better. On 89 sites that left Magento, 27.0% of 1,510 linked non-.html URLs are dead, against 35.4% of the .html URLs.
The likely reason is structural. Shopify uses its own fixed paths, such as /products/ and /collections/, so an old address ending in .html cannot carry over as it was. Each one needs an explicit redirect rule, and the more rules a migration needs, the more chances there are to miss some. Non-.html URLs still break at a high rate, but the suffix adds a clear extra risk.
Redirect coverage decides it
Whether an old .html URL redirects at all is the biggest difference we found. Of 189 linked .html URLs that are not redirected, 68.8% return a 404 or 410, more than two in three. Of the 388 that do redirect, 19.1% are dead, about one in five.
The redirected group is not perfect, because some redirects point at a page that itself no longer exists. But a redirect, even an imperfect one, goes with a far lower dead rate. The unredirected group also has the most blocked responses, at 18.5% against 1.0% for redirected URLs, so its true dead rate may be higher still.
Most sites lose a share, some lose half
The problem is spread across most stores, not limited to a few bad migrations. Of the 39 former Magento sites with 5 or more linked .html URLs, the median site has 28.6% of them dead.
At the far end, 14 of those 39 sites have half or more of their linked .html URLs dead. For those stores, the redirect map likely covered the main catalog but left out many of the old addresses other sites actually link to.
What this means for your store
If you are planning a move off Magento, build the redirect map from your backlink data as well as your catalog export. Pull every old URL with external links, including every .html product and category URL, and map each one to its closest page on the new store.
- Give every linked .html URL its own redirect rule. Do not assume a pattern will catch them all.
- Send each old URL to the matching product, collection or article, not the homepage.
- After launch, request every old linked URL and confirm it resolves to a real page.
- Check blocked responses separately, since a 403 or 429 can hide a dead page.
If you have already moved, run your backlink list against the live store now. Every dead linked URL you redirect starts passing its value again.
Sources
- PageSpeed Matters analysis of backlinked URLs on sites that left Magento for Shopify, October 2026
- Shopify Help Center, URL redirects: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/menus-and-links/url-redirect
- Google Search Central, redirects and Google Search: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/301-redirects
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<p style="font:14px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif">Source: <a href="https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies/magento-migration-404s">Magento Migration 404s: 35.4% of Old .html URLs - PageSpeed Matters</a></p>
Frequently asked questions
How many old Magento URLs break after a migration?
Of 577 backlinked .html URLs on 59 sites that left Magento for Shopify, 35.4% now return a 404 or 410 and 6.8% are blocked. Linked non-.html URLs fare a little better, at 27.0% dead.
Do redirects stop Magento .html URLs from breaking?
Mostly. 68.8% of linked .html URLs with no redirect return a 404 or 410, against 19.1% of those that do redirect.
How do I keep backlinks when moving off Magento?
Export every old URL with external links, including each .html product and category URL, and give each one a redirect to its closest page on the new store. After launch, request every old linked URL and fix any that return a 404.
A redirect map built from your backlink data keeps the links your Magento store earned working after the move. Need help with this? See our ecommerce migration services.