Goal: Change the URL handles for many products at once using a spreadsheet, and automatically create URL redirects from the old links to the new ones so you don't lose any SEO value or break existing links.

Video walkthrough: Watch the 3-minute video

Prerequisites:

You only need to export the products whose handles you plan to change. The quickest way is to select them in your Shopify admin: go to Products, check the products you want, click the ... (three dots) menu, and choose Export selection with Altera. This opens Altera with an export already set up for those products.

You can also start from Altera by going to Export, selecting Products, and applying a filter.

On the export setup page, you don't need every column. Open the General column group and select:

Save your field selection, leave the other settings at their defaults, and click Export.

Once the export finishes, download the output file and open it. You'll see one row per product with its current handle and title.

Edit the Handle column to your new values. You can do this manually, with an AI tool, or with a spreadsheet formula. For example, in Excel you could add -new to the end of every handle and fill the formula down the column.

Keep the ID column intact, then save the file.

Return to Altera and click Upload file on the home page, then select your edited spreadsheet. Altera detects that the file contains Products and reads the ID, Handle, and Title columns.

If you used a helper formula in an extra column, you may see a warning about an unnamed column. You can safely ignore it, as that column is not imported.

In the Options section on the import setup page, make sure Create redirects if handles change is selected. This option is on by default. When enabled, Altera creates a URL redirect from each product's old URL to its new one for every handle that changes.

When everything looks right, click Run import.

Your products now have their new handles, and a URL redirect was created for each changed handle. Anyone who visits an old product URL is automatically sent to the new one, so your existing links and search engine rankings keep working.

To verify, open one of the updated products in your Shopify admin and check the handle near the bottom of the product page. Then go to Online Store > Navigation > URL Redirects to see the new redirects listed.