What does a shopper see on a page that no longer exists?

When a shopper opens the address of a page that no longer exists, such as a product you took down, a collection you renamed or an old link from another site, Shopify shows your theme's "not found" (404) page. On the URL redirects page, on its Settings tab, under When a page is missing, you choose what SignalLane adds to that page. It runs in the shopper's browser, after the page has loaded.

The four choices

• Offer the visitor somewhere else to go (the default). The shopper stays on the page and SignalLane shows a card with similar products, collections and pages, then a row with Search the store, your fallback page and Home. That row is always there, so the card is never empty. The search link never shows the words of the address the shopper typed.
• Send them there automatically. From a dead product page, SignalLane sends the shopper on only when it is confident of the match. Otherwise, and on every other kind of missing page, the shopper gets the card.
• Send them to the nearest collection. From a dead product page, SignalLane sends the shopper to the product's new address or to a collection it belonged to. Otherwise, and on every other kind of missing page, the shopper gets the card.
• Off. SignalLane adds nothing and your theme's 404 page shows as it is. Broken links are still recorded on the Broken links page.

With either "Send them…" choice you also pick a countdown: Immediately, or 3, 5 or 10 seconds with a button the shopper can press to stay. Press Save to apply your choice.

Your fallback page

With any choice but Off, the card's last row offers All products (your store's built-in list of every product), or one of your collections that you choose under If nothing similar is found, also offer. SignalLane cannot check that a collection is published on your online store, so choose one you know is.

Under How suggestions appear on the URL redirects page you choose In the page (the default) or As a popup. A popup opens over the 404 page only when there are similar items to show; it closes with its close button, the Esc key or a click outside it, and on a phone it slides up from the bottom of the screen. It never opens while a shopper is being sent on to another page. When the Suggested products block is on your 404 page, the block's own Display setting is used instead.

With a popup, When the popup has been closed decides what a shopper sees when they come back to the same missing page during their visit: Show the popup every time (the default), Show it once, then nothing (after that only your theme's own 404 page), or Show it once, then in the page (after that the suggestions appear in the page). "Once" counts each missing page separately. The block has the same setting.

What the card offers

• Products come only from SignalLane's copy of your catalogue, so your products must have synced on the Catalogue page first. SignalLane picks the products most like the page that is gone.
• Collections come only from your store's own search. When SignalLane has fewer than three suggestions, the shopper's browser asks your store's search, once per page per visit, and adds the products, collections, pages and blog posts it finds, never a sold-out product. SignalLane never names a collection itself, because it cannot tell whether a collection is published on your online store.
• Pages and blog posts come from your store's search too. If you have let SignalLane read your pages and blog posts (on the AI readiness page), a missing page or blog post is also offered up to two of your published pages and posts that share its words, never one you hid from search engines. A missing blog post prefers posts from the same blog, and a missing page is offered products only when no page matched. About that permission.

The card never says "best seller" or "popular", because SignalLane does not know what sells best, and it never tells a shopper why a page is gone.

Match your theme: the Suggested products block

By default the card appears on its own below your theme's 404 message. To place it yourself and match your theme, add the Suggested products block to your 404 page. The URL redirects page has an Add the block button that opens the theme editor there, or:

1. In Shopify, open Online Store > Themes and click Customize.
2. Choose the 404 page from the page menu at the top.
3. Click Add section, open the Apps tab and choose Suggested products.
4. Save.

The block has these settings:

• Display: In the page (the default) or As a popup, which opens over the page. The block itself then stays empty.
• When the popup has been closed (shown for a popup): Show the popup every time (the default), Show it once, then nothing or Show it once, then in the page. Once is per missing page, for one visit.
• Show intro text: on by default. Turn it off to hide the line above the suggestions.
• Intro text: leave it blank to use the default line, shown in each visitor's language.
• Heading: leave it blank to use the default heading, shown in each visitor's language.
• Maximum products: from 2 to 8.
• Show price: on by default.
• Image shape: square, portrait or landscape. Every image box keeps its size while the picture loads, so the page does not jump.

While the block is on the page, the suggestions appear inside it and nowhere else. It needs the SignalLane app embed on: with the embed off the block stays empty and takes no space. In the theme editor it shows a short note instead of products, because suggestions are only worked out on a live 404 page.

Translating the block's text

Leave Heading and Intro text blank to use the built-in wording in every language your store offers, or translate what you typed in Translate & Adapt.

Styling it with custom CSS

A section's Custom CSS applies only inside that section, so add it to the Apps section that holds the block, not to your theme's 404 section, or use Custom CSS under Theme settings. The parts carry stable class names: .signallane-suggested-products__grid, __card, __image, __title and __price, each after .signallane-suggested-products (write the full name with its leading dot, for example .signallane-suggested-products__title). They apply in the popup too. Rules you add there take priority over SignalLane's own styling of these parts. Shopify limits a section's custom CSS to 500 characters and does not allow the content property.

How you took the product down matters

"On sale" below means SignalLane saw the product on your online store at that web address. It keeps that record from the day this reached your store, so a product you took down before then counts as never on sale.

• Archived, or drafted or hidden after SignalLane saw it on sale: the card offers products from its collection or of its type, and both "Send them…" choices work.
• Deleted after SignalLane saw it on sale: for about a year, the card still suggests similar products, as it does for an archived product, and so do both "Send them…" choices.
• Drafted or hidden before it was ever on sale: products with similar names can still appear on the card, but nothing about the product itself steers it, and SignalLane does not redirect. That protects a launch you are preparing as a draft.
• Deleted before it was ever on sale: products with similar names only, and no redirect.

When you change a web address

If you change a product's web address in Shopify without ticking Shopify's "Create a URL redirect" box, SignalLane notices, and for about a year the card offers the product at its new address, and both "Send them…" choices send the shopper there. A collection whose address you changed gets the same card as any other missing collection; SignalLane never sends a shopper to its new address, but it can suggest a Shopify redirect to it for you to approve.

Where the 404 card sent visitors

On the URL redirects page, this section counts the visits in the last 30 days that followed a link on the card, or its automatic redirect, by the part used: SignalLane's suggestions, Automatic redirects, Your store's search and Your fallback page or home page, beside the visits to broken pages in the same days.

These are visits, not sales. Card visits count only visitors who allowed analytics, so the real numbers are at least these. The section also shows how many orders followed a visit from the card, within 30 days of it, as a count with no amounts. Days are UTC days.

Testing it on your own store

Three safeguards can make it look broken while you test. All three are deliberate:

• SignalLane sends a visitor away from the same page only once per browser session, so a reload can never turn into a loop. Open a new private window to be sent again.
• Opening a broken link from the Broken links page does not redirect you and is not added to the list, so your own checks never inflate it.
• A broken page is recorded once per browser session, so reloading it does not raise its visit count.

Where the dead pages go

The dead pages visitors reach, in a browser that runs JavaScript, are recorded on the Broken links page, whatever you chose here. Nothing about the visitor is kept: only the page's path, its visit count and the sites that sent visitors to it.