A lookalike letter comes from another alphabet but looks exactly like a Latin letter. The Cyrillic с is the usual one, and a computer stores it as a different character from the Latin c. When it slips into a Shopify collection handle, usually from a pasted supplier spreadsheet, the web address stops spelling the word people expect. You can find every one with a single spreadsheet formula, then retype the handle by hand and keep Shopify's redirect option switched on.
By Margareta Petrovic, CISA, CISSP, founder of Visibility Mesh. Our engine has scored 957 websites to date (figure measured October 4, 2026).
On August 6, 2026, a merchant posted on the Shopify Community about a Cyrillic С sitting where a Latin C should be. They had found it in collection titles and handles on more than one store. Three days later the same merchant checked a store with 548 products. They reported 14 of these letters across 6 products, and 3 were on main category pages. They blamed text copied from supplier feeds and translated spreadsheets.
That thread is the only public report of this problem we have found, so this page sticks to what Shopify, Google and Unicode document and gives you a check you can run this week.
What is a lookalike character?
Every letter on a computer has a code number. Most fonts draw the Latin c and the Cyrillic с the same way. Their codes differ, so a computer treats them as two unrelated letters.
In security work this is an old problem. The Unicode Consortium keeps a table of characters that people confuse in its security standard, UTS #39. That table lists the Cyrillic с as a lookalike of the Latin c. Attackers use the same trick to fake web addresses. In a store the culprit is usually a spreadsheet rather than an attacker, but the address breaks the same way.
How does it get into my handles?
Shopify builds a handle from the title when you create a product or collection. Its developer documentation says handles are always lowercase and that spaces and special characters become a hyphen. Shopify's product CSV help says a valid handle can contain letters, dashes and numbers, and a Cyrillic letter still counts as a letter.
Shopify does not update a handle when you change the title later. You can retype a bad title and the handle will still carry the Cyrillic letter. It stays there until someone edits the handle itself.
What does it cost me?
Google's URL structure guide says characters outside the basic Latin set should be percent encoded in links. A collection called "coats" whose first letter came from a Cyrillic spreadsheet therefore travels as %D1%81oats. Your browser shows coats, and crawlers receive %D1%81oats.
Anyone who types the address with a normal c, or links to it from a blog post or a newsletter, asks your store for a different page. We would expect that request to land on a 404 page. The merchant in the thread also reported that typing the collection name in the admin search found nothing when the letter was Cyrillic.
It is a typo that will pass every proofread you give it.
Google does not publish how it reads a word that mixes two alphabets. So we will not tell you what the letter costs in rankings. Addresses in other alphabets are fine, since Google's own guide shows how to write Arabic and Chinese ones correctly. The trouble is one foreign letter hiding inside an English word.
How do I check my whole store?
Looking at the handles will not help, because the letters look identical. Let a spreadsheet look for you.
For products, go to Products, click Export and open the CSV file. The URL handle column holds every product handle. For collections, open yourstore.com/sitemap.xml, follow the collections sitemap link and copy the collection addresses into a Google Sheet.
Put the handles or addresses in column A and this formula in B2, then copy it down: =REGEXMATCH(REGEXEXTRACT(A2,"[^/]+$"),"[^a-z0-9-]"). The formula reads the last part of each address. It returns TRUE when that part holds anything other than a to z, 0 to 9 or a hyphen. A Cyrillic letter is flagged whether it shows as the letter itself or as a percent code.
For a single collection, the check from the thread works too. Search for the collection in the admin and type the name by hand instead of pasting it. If nothing comes up, one of the letters is not the letter you think it is.
How do I fix a handle without losing visitors?
In your Shopify admin, go to Products, then Collections, and open the collection. In the Search engine listing section, click the edit icon and retype the URL handle by hand. Keep the option to create a redirect from the old URL to the new one selected. Shopify says the redirect sends visitors from the old address to the new one instead of a 404 page. Click Save, and retype the collection title as well, since the title may carry the same letter.
Products work the same way from the product page. Then fix the spreadsheet the letter came from, or the next import will bring it straight back.
When should I get help?
If the formula flags a handful of handles, you can fix them yourself in under an hour. Get help when the formula flags dozens of handles. Get it also when your store sells in several languages and some non Latin handles are there on purpose. Get help as well if a collection already lives at two addresses and people have shared both. In that last case the redirects, the sitemap and the canonical tags all need to point to one version.
A checklist to work through on your own
- Export your products and copy the URL handle column into a Google Sheet.
- Copy your collection addresses from the collections sitemap into the same sheet.
- Run the formula and write down every handle it flags.
- Separate the handles that are non Latin on purpose from the ones that hide a single foreign letter.
- Retype each bad handle by hand and keep the redirect option selected.
- Retype the titles that carry the same letter.
- Open each old address once to confirm that it now redirects.
- Tell your supplier, or fix the source spreadsheet, so the next import stays clean.
Questions owners ask
How can a letter look right and still be wrong?
Fonts draw some letters from different alphabets the same way, but the computer stores each one under its own code. The Unicode security standard UTS #39 lists the Cyrillic с as a lookalike of the Latin c. You see the same word, but the computer stores a different one.
How did a Cyrillic letter get into my Shopify store?
The usual route is a pasted supplier feed or a translated spreadsheet. Shopify builds the handle from the title when the product or collection is created, so the letter goes from the title into the address. Shopify does not change the handle when you edit the title later.
Does a lookalike letter hurt my Google rankings?
Google does not publish how it treats a word that mixes two alphabets, so we would not promise a ranking effect either way. The address no longer matches the word people type and link to, and that much is certain. Fixing it takes minutes per handle, so we would fix it rather than wait for proof.
How do I find lookalike characters in all my handles at once?
Put your handles or collection addresses in column A of a Google Sheet and use =REGEXMATCH(REGEXEXTRACT(A2,"[^/]+$"),"[^a-z0-9-]") in column B. Any row that shows TRUE holds a character other than a to z, 0 to 9 or a hyphen. Product handles come from the product CSV export, and collection addresses come from your collections sitemap.
Will changing the handle break my old links?
It will not, as long as you keep the redirect option selected when you edit the URL handle. Shopify says the redirect sends anyone who follows the old link to the new address instead of a 404 page. Open the old address once after you save to confirm it works.
Are URLs in other alphabets bad for SEO?
Addresses in other alphabets are fine. Google's URL guide shows how to write Arabic and Chinese addresses correctly, with percent encoding in the links. A store that sells in those languages should use them. The problem on this page is a single foreign letter inside an English word.
See what else a crawler trips over on your store
Lookalike letters are one of several ways an address can drift away from its page. The free scan reads 5 of your key pages as they are served. It emails you a 0 to 100 score and a fix list in priority order, and it needs no card. If a collection already lives at two addresses, Foundation fixes the sitemaps and canonicals so machines are pointed to one version of each page. We work in a copy of your theme, and you approve every change before it goes live.
Sources
We opened every source below on October 5, 2026.
- Your store may be invisible to ChatGPT, 3 things I keep finding, Shopify Community, thread started August 6, 2026, with the follow up of August 9, 2026.
- Unicode Technical Standard #39, Unicode Security Mechanisms, version 18.0.0, August 27, 2026.
- Liquid basics, Handles, Shopify developer documentation.
- Using CSV files to import and export products, Shopify Help Center.
- Exporting products, Shopify Help Center.
- Collection settings, Shopify Help Center.
- URL structure best practices for Google, Google Search Central, last updated December 10, 2025.
- Press and benchmark, Visibility Mesh, figures measured October 4, 2026.