Relink vs SEOWILL: Which Shopify Broken Link App Is Right for You?

Key Takeaways

• SEOWILL monitors inbound 404 errors — it waits for a visitor to hit a broken link before it knows it exists
• Relink proactively crawls your store’s content to find broken links before any visitor encounters them
• Neither app is wrong; they solve different versions of the same problem
• If you have a store with active content (products, blog posts, pages with links inside them), Relink will find broken links SEOWILL never sees

SEOWILL (formerly SEOAnt) is the most-installed broken link app on Shopify with over 4,000 active stores. It’s been around long enough to accumulate 162+ reviews. If you search the Shopify App Store for broken link tools, it’s usually the first result.

Relink takes a different approach. Instead of waiting for 404 errors to appear, it reads your store’s content directly and finds broken links before any visitor or search engine encounters them.

Here’s what that difference actually means in practice.

How Each App Works

SEOWILL: Reactive 404 Monitoring

SEOWILL tracks 404 errors by monitoring traffic. When a visitor (or search engine) requests a URL on your store that doesn’t exist, SEOWILL logs it. You get a record of every URL that returned a 404, and you can set up redirects from inside the app.

This is called reactive monitoring — you find out about broken links after someone already hit them.

It also includes a “web scan” feature on some plans, but this is a standard HTML crawler — it reads visible page content, not Shopify’s content API.

Relink: Proactive Content Scanning

Relink connects to Shopify’s Admin API and reads your store’s content directly — product descriptions, blog posts, custom pages, metafields — then checks every URL found against your live store. It finds broken links in your content before any visitor does.

This is called proactive scanning — you find broken links before they cause problems.

Relink also tracks inbound 404 errors, so you get both approaches in one tool.

What Each One Finds (and Misses)

This is the most important thing to understand before choosing.

A broken link buried inside a product description that your customers rarely scroll past could exist for months without appearing in SEOWILL’s dashboard — because no visitor has clicked it yet. Relink finds it on the next scheduled scan.

For stores where traffic is mostly to collection pages and product detail pages (rather than clicking deeply into product description links), this gap matters less. For stores with link-heavy product descriptions or an active blog, it’s significant.

Fix Suggestions

SEOWILL shows you the broken URL (the 404 destination) and suggests live URLs from your store to redirect to. These are URL-matching suggestions based on similarity — it looks for pages with similar handles.

Relink uses AI (Gemini 2.5) to suggest fixes with context. It reads the page the broken link appears on, the anchor text of the broken link, and your store’s current URL structure to suggest the most appropriate destination. For example, a broken link that says “see our winter jacket guide” on a product page should redirect differently than the same broken URL appearing on your homepage.

The difference matters most when the correct destination isn’t obvious from the URL alone.

Pricing Comparison

Pricing is comparable at entry level. SEOWILL’s free plan is meaningful if your store has a low 404 volume. Relink’s free plan is enough for a new store getting started.

What Users Say About SEOWILL

With 162 reviews, SEOWILL has a 4.7/5 rating — strong overall. But the 1-star reviews are worth reading. The most common complaint across multiple reviews is billing after uninstallation: merchants report being charged after removing the app from their store. This has come up enough that it’s worth noting as a consideration.

Other recurring feedback mentions the “web scan” not finding links inside dynamic content — consistent with the HTML-crawl limitation described above.

Who Should Use SEOWILL

• You want the most-established app in the category with the largest install base
• Your main concern is tracking 404 errors from external traffic (old URLs, marketing campaigns, backlinks to deleted pages)
• Your store has simple content without many links inside product descriptions or blog posts
• You primarily need redirect management, not link discovery

Who Should Use Relink

• You want to find broken links before visitors or Google encounter them
• Your store has product descriptions, blog posts, or pages with links inside the content
• You want AI-powered fix suggestions that understand the context of each broken link
• You want one tool that covers both proactive scanning and inbound 404 monitoring

Can You Use Both?

Technically yes, but practically there’s significant overlap. If you’re already on SEOWILL and happy with it, the gap Relink fills is the content-layer scanning. If you’re choosing for the first time, decide whether reactive monitoring or proactive scanning better fits how your store is managed.

For stores that regularly add and remove products, update content, or run an active blog, proactive scanning finds more problems sooner. For stores with a stable catalog and straightforward link structure, reactive monitoring is often sufficient.

Relink proactively scans your Shopify store’s content for broken links and uses AI to suggest the right fix for each one — before any visitor encounters them. Install free on Shopify.