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Problem
When navigating the store, links to some products or categories result in the following error message:
Bad Request - Invalid URL
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HTTP Error 400. The request URL is invalid
Cause
Your product or category names are way too long.
This is typically caused when the product or category name is impractically long. That's because the store software uses the product name and catalog ID to construct the URL on the store front. So, having a long name on your products will result in this "Invalid URL" error message.
For example, let's say that you have a product for a particular flashlight.
Let's call the product "led powered flashlight."
The resulting URL created by the store will be something similar to
http://merchant-domain.com/led-powered-flashlight_p_104.html
Notice how the name of the product and its catalog ID are used for the URL?
Now, let's say that the product's name is:
"the finest and most durable battery operated led flashlight with strobe setting and infrared filters and all sorts of neat functions to illumintate the darkest places on the planet for up to 800 meters"
By having an unusually long name like this for the product, its resulting URL will be created as:
http://merchant-domain.com/the-finest-and-most-durable-battery-operated-led-flashlight-with-strobe-setting-and-infrared-filters-and-all-sorts-of-neat-functions-to-illumintate-the-darkest-places-on-the-planet-for-up-to-800-meters_p_104.html
Solution
There are two options you can consider to avoid and/or correct this issue.
- Option 1
Use smaller names for your products.
Rather than having all of the features of the product crammed into its name, give the product a smaller name, and use the Extended Description section to list all of its features instead
- Option 2
Use custom file names.
In some cases, the product name is long because that's the way it's being supplied to the merchant. Perhaps that's how the products are listed in a CSV file, or through a feed/API setup of some sort that populates the store.
In these cases, you may not have the option or luxury of shortening the product name, so we suggest setting up Custom File names for the products instead.
This way, you can preserve the product name as needed for the store, but the custom file name will allow the store to properly show the URL.
In other words, the product name can still be:
"the finest and most durable battery operated led flashlight with strobe setting and infrared filters and all sorts of neat functions to illumintate the darkest places on the planet for up to 800 meters"
...if that's what you need on the product page. But, the page's URL will be something more web friendly like "led-flashlight.html" through the use of a custom file name.
Click here to learn more about using custom file names.
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