How to Migrate to Shopify Without Losing SEO

Moving your store to Shopify from WooCommerce, Magento, Wix or another platform is a chance to start fresh. It's also the moment many stores lose search traffic they spent years building. Shopify isn't the cause. The traffic goes when old URLs stop working and page details get lost in the move.

Almost all of that can be prevented. This checklist covers what to record before you move, how to map and redirect every URL, what to check on launch day and what to watch in Google Search Console afterwards.

Why rankings drop after a migration

Search engines rank individual URLs. When a URL changes and nothing points from the old address to the new one, the rankings, links and bookmarks attached to it are lost. The most common causes are:

• Changed URLs without redirects. Shopify uses fixed URL formats, such as /products/ and /collections/, so most addresses change in a move.
• Missing page titles and meta descriptions. If they aren't moved, Shopify falls back to the product title and description.
• Lost content. Category text, product descriptions and blog posts that are shortened or left behind.
• Broken internal links. Links inside descriptions and posts that still point to old URLs.
• A slower store. A heavy theme or too many apps can undo the gains of a cleaner platform.
• Blocked pages. A store left password-protected, or pages hidden by mistake after launch.

Before the move: record what you have

You can't redirect URLs you don't know about. Before anything changes, record what the old store has and how it performs:

1. List every URL on the old site: products, categories, pages and blog posts. Use its sitemap and a site crawler such as Screaming Frog.
2. Export your top pages from the Performance report in Google Search Console, so you know which URLs bring the most clicks.
3. Export your most-linked pages from the Links report in Search Console. Pages other sites link to deserve extra care.
4. Save the page title, meta description and H1 of every important page.
5. Note your benchmarks: organic clicks, top search terms and conversion rate, so you can compare after launch.

Tip: keep a copy of the old site. Keep your crawl export, and a staging copy of the old store if you can, until the new one has been live for a few months. It's the fastest way to check what a page used to say.

Map every old URL to its new Shopify URL

Shopify's URL formats are fixed, so most addresses change. Keep the last part of each URL, the handle, the same wherever you can: /product/blue-mug/ should become /products/blue-mug, not /products/blue-ceramic-mug-2.

Three rules keep the map clean:

• Point each old URL to the most relevant new page, never to the home page by default.
• Redirect products you're not bringing across to the closest product or collection.
• Redirect straight to the final URL. A redirect that leads to another redirect slows crawlers and visitors down.

Set up 301 redirects in Shopify

Shopify redirects are permanent (301) redirects, and you manage them on the URL redirects page in your admin. For a migration, import them all at once:

1. Put your URL map in a CSV file with two columns: Redirect from and Redirect to.
2. Use paths, such as /product/blue-mug/ in the first column and /products/blue-mug in the second.
3. Import the file on the URL redirects page.
4. Test a sample of old URLs, with and without a trailing slash, and check that each one lands on the right page.

Shopify only uses a redirect when nothing exists at the old address, so a redirect can never hide a live page. Later, when you change a product's handle in the admin, Shopify offers to create the redirect for you.

Move your SEO data, not just your products

A migration moves more than a product catalog. Check each of these on the new store:

• Page titles and meta descriptions, in the "Search engine listing" section of every product, collection, page and blog post.
• Image alt text, which describes your product images to search engines and screen readers.
• Category text, such as the introduction above or below a product grid, moved to the matching collection.
• Blog posts, with their images, authors and original publish dates.
• Links inside your content, updated to the new URLs so they don't rely on redirects.
• Product reviews, imported through your reviews app so product pages keep them.

Shopify creates your sitemap automatically, most themes add canonical tags, and many include product structured data. Check that yours does before launch.

Launch day checklist

• Remove the store password, so shoppers and search engines can reach the new store.
• Connect your domain in Settings → Domains and set it as the primary domain.
• Import your redirects and test a sample of old URLs.
• Check your robots.txt file. Shopify generates it for you, and a robots.txt.liquid template lets you change it if you need to.
• Submit /sitemap.xml in Google Search Console. Shopify keeps it up to date as you add products and pages.
• If your domain name changed, also use the Change of Address tool in Search Console.
• Test checkout, order emails, analytics and tracking pixels.

After launch: watch Google Search Console

For the first few weeks, check Search Console every few days:

• Page indexing report: look for pages marked "Not found (404)". Each one is an old URL that still needs a redirect.
• URL Inspection: check that your most important pages are indexed at their new URLs, and request indexing where needed.
• Performance report: compare clicks and positions with the benchmarks you saved before the move.
• Your own links: update the links on your social profiles, marketplace listings and email templates.

Some movement in rankings is normal while Google recrawls the store. Google says that for a medium-sized site, most pages can take a few weeks to move in its index. Fixing 404s and broken links as they appear keeps that period short.

Time your migration well

Avoid switching platforms in the weeks before your busiest season. A new store needs time to settle, and you need time to fix what Search Console finds. If your peak is Black Friday, launch well before November or wait until the new year. Our BFCM checklist covers what to focus on instead if the sale is close.

Platform notes

• WooCommerce: products, customers and orders move across well, and Shopify apps replace the plugins you rely on. See WooCommerce to Shopify migration.
• Magento: complex catalogs and custom features are rebuilt on Shopify or Shopify Plus, and URLs ending in .html all need redirects. See Magento to Shopify migration.
• Wix: product, page and blog URLs all change format, so the redirect map matters most. See Wix to Shopify migration.

Every project in our Shopify migration service includes the steps in this guide: every old URL mapped and redirected, the sitemap submitted and Search Console monitored after launch.

Frequently asked questions