Store 404 pages with no product links, by platform and rank (error pages only)
| Group | Stores | No product links |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify | 658 | 79.0% |
| Other platforms | 63 | 93.7% |
| Rank 1 to 3 | 212 | 79.2% |
| Rank 4 to 10 | 232 | 82.8% |
| Rank 11 to 20 | 298 | 79.5% |
| All error pages | 742 | 80.5% |
Source: PageSpeed Matters, Oct 2026. Stores with an unknown platform count only in the All error pages row.
Summary
Every store gets traffic to pages that no longer exist: old product links, mistyped URLs, expired campaigns. The 404 page is the one chance to keep that shopper, and the easiest way to do it is to show them products.
We requested a made-up URL on 812 ranking online stores. Of the 742 that returned a 404 or 410 error page, 80.5% had no product links in the page HTML. Most stores do offer a search box somewhere on the page. This is a short study based on one fetch per store.
What we measured
We built a list of 812 ranking store homepages from Shopify and WooCommerce product and category URLs in commercial verticals. In October 2026, we requested one random, non-existent URL on each store. 50 stores blocked or rate-limited the request and 2 failed, leaving 760 that answered.
For the 742 stores that returned a 404 or 410 page, we read the server HTML of the error page with the header, navigation and footer removed, and counted the product links and links left in the body.
Two limits matter. We read server HTML only, so product recommendations that JavaScript adds after the page loads are missed. And the result depends on how theme sections are stripped: removing only the header, nav and footer tags lowers the no-products share to 71.4%.
Four in five store 404 pages show no products
80.5% of the 742 store error pages showed no product links in the page body. A shopper who lands on one of those pages gets no product to click from the error page itself.
Search helps some of them. 78.7% of the error pages offer a search box once the header is counted, so most shoppers have a way to look for what they wanted, as long as they think to use it. Beyond that, the pages are thin: the median error page body carries just 3 links once the header, navigation and footer are removed.
A few stores avoid the error page altogether, and not in a good way. 1.8% of the 760 stores that answered returned a 200 status instead of a 404, and 0.5% sent shoppers straight to the homepage. Neither tells search engines that the page is gone.
80.5%
Share of 742 ranking store 404 or 410 error pages with no product links in the page HTML body.
Shopify error pages are less bare
79.0% of 658 Shopify 404 pages show no product links, against 93.7% of 63 stores on other platforms. Shopify themes give the 404 page its own template that store owners can edit, which likely explains part of the difference. On other platforms, the error page is likely more often left as it came.
By rank there is little difference. 79.2% of stores ranking 1 to 3 show no products on their 404 page, against 82.8% ranking 4 to 10 and 79.5% ranking 11 to 20. A bare error page is common at every level of search visibility.
What this means for your store
Request a URL on your store that cannot exist, such as /this-page-does-not-exist, and look at what a shopper sees. Check the status code too: it should be a 404 or 410, not a 200 or a redirect to the homepage.
- Add a short row of best sellers or featured collections to the 404 template, rendered in the HTML rather than loaded later.
- Put a search box in the body of the page, not only in the header.
- Link to your main categories and your contact or help page.
- Review your 404 logs or Search Console and redirect old product URLs that still get traffic to their closest replacement.
Sources
- PageSpeed Matters test of one made-up URL on 812 ranking store homepages, October 2026
- Google Search Central, HTTP status codes and network errors: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/http-network-errors
Embed this research
Paste this on your site to embed the chart. It links back to the source automatically.
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<script>window.addEventListener("message",function(e){if(e&&e.data&&e.data.psmEmbed==="store-404-pages"&&e.data.height){var f=document.getElementById("psm-store-404-pages");if(f){f.style.height=e.data.height+"px";}}});</script>
<p style="font:14px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif">Source: <a href="https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies/store-404-pages">Store 404 Pages: 4 in 5 Link to Zero Products in Their HTML - PageSpeed Matters</a></p>
Frequently asked questions
What should an ecommerce 404 page include?
At minimum, products, a search box and links to main categories. In our sample, 80.5% of 742 store 404 pages had no product links in the page HTML, though 78.7% offered a search box when the header is counted.
Should a store's 404 page redirect to the homepage?
No. A missing page should return a 404 or 410 status. In our sample, 1.8% of 760 stores returned a 200 for a made-up URL and 0.5% sent shoppers to the homepage.
Do Shopify 404 pages show products?
More often than other platforms, but still rarely. 79.0% of 658 Shopify 404 pages show no product links, against 93.7% of 63 stores on other platforms.
A 404 page with products and search is a one-time template change that keeps lost shoppers in the store. Need help with this? See our ecommerce CRO agency.