CASE STUDY
How We Caught 80+ Broken Links a Well-Known Health & Beauty Brand Had Missed for Months
A marketing agency had been managing SEO and campaigns for the client for months. None of it caught what Shoptest's broken link tracking found in days.
Mateusz, Hyper Effekt Agency
The Problem
A huge, well-recognized health & beauty brand from Poland — one of our agency's clients — had been working with a marketing agency for an extended period, running SEO and paid campaigns, publishing new content, and regularly updating collections and product pages. On paper, everything was being "managed."
In practice, more than 80 broken links had built up across the store — old product URLs, outdated collection links, and orphaned blog references — and none of it had been caught. Not by the marketing agency, not by internal reviews, not by the client themselves. Broken links don't show up in an analytics dashboard the way a drop in conversion does; you have to go looking for them, consistently, or they pile up unnoticed.
What We Did
As part of our ongoing work with the client, we implemented Shoptest's broken link tracking — a feature designed to continuously scan a live storefront for dead links rather than rely on a one-off audit.
1. We enabled scheduled broken-link scans across the storefront, covering product pages, collections, navigation, and blog content — not just the homepage.
2. Shoptest flagged every broken link it found, giving us a clear, prioritized list instead of a vague sense that "something might be off."
3. We reviewed and worked through the list systematically, fixing or redirecting each broken URL — reconnecting orphaned product links, adding 301 redirects for retired pages, and cleaning up outdated references left behind by previous campaigns and site changes.
4. We kept scans running on a schedule, so instead of a one-time cleanup, the client now has ongoing visibility every time new content, products, or collections are added or removed.
The Solution (and the Result)
The client's storefront went from carrying 80+ silent, uncounted broken links to having continuous, automated visibility into link health. Every dead link that had been quietly leaking SEO value and frustrating visitors was identified and resolved, and the store now runs recurring scans so new issues get caught early instead of accumulating for months at a time.
80+ broken links found and fixed
Missed for months by ongoing SEO and marketing work — caught within days of enabling continuous broken-link tracking.
SEO and marketing agencies are typically focused on growth activities — content, campaigns, rankings — not on the operational hygiene of every single link across an evolving storefront. Broken link tracking isn't a substitute for SEO work; it's the safety net underneath it, making sure the traffic and rankings that campaigns work hard to earn aren't quietly undermined by dead ends the moment a shopper clicks through.
What is a broken link, and why does it matter?
A broken link is any link on a website that no longer leads where it's supposed to — usually a 404, but also a dead redirect chain, a deleted product, or a discontinued collection. On a Shopify store, broken links accumulate quietly through everyday operations: products get discontinued, collections get restructured, blog posts get updated, apps get swapped, or a theme migration leaves old URLs behind.
SEO impact: search engines crawl links to understand site structure and authority. Repeated dead ends signal a poorly maintained site, hurt crawl efficiency, and let broken internal links leak link equity that should be flowing to the pages that matter.
Customer experience impact: a shopper who clicks a product link, a collection link, or a link from a marketing email and lands on a 404 page doesn't usually try again — they leave. Unlike a checkout bug, nobody files a complaint about it. They just bounce.
That's what makes broken links dangerous: there's no error alert, no support ticket, no dashboard warning — unless something is actively looking for them, continuously.
Stop letting broken links quietly leak SEO and customers.
See what continuous storefront monitoring would catch on your store — broken links, failed journeys, and more.