How to migrate a store to Shopify without losing search traffic
A migration keeps its search traffic when every old URL is redirected to its equivalent on Shopify, page titles and meta descriptions are carried over, and the launch is monitored in Google Search Console. Most of the work happens before launch, in a complete map of the old store's URLs.
Start with a full list of your current URLs
Before anything moves, export every URL the current store serves: products, categories, content pages, blog posts and any filtered pages that earn traffic. Combine the platform’s export with a crawl of the live site and the pages Google Search Console reports, so nothing that ranks or has links pointing to it is missed. That list becomes the redirect map.
Know what Shopify’s URL structure allows
Shopify puts every type of page under a fixed path prefix. You can change the handle at the end of a URL, but not the prefix, so an address like /shoes/running-shoe.html cannot be reproduced on Shopify as it is.
- Products:
/products/handle - Collections:
/collections/handle - Pages:
/pages/handle - Blog posts:
/blogs/blog-name/handle
This is why redirects, not identical URLs, carry the old store’s search history across. Keeping handles close to the old slugs still helps people and makes the map easier to check.
Redirect every old URL with a 301
Each old URL gets a permanent (301) redirect to its closest equivalent on the new store: product to product, category to collection, article to article. Shopify stores these redirects in the admin and accepts them in bulk as a CSV import, so a map of thousands of rows is practical.
Point to the final page, not a chain
Send each old URL straight to its final address. Chains of redirects slow crawlers down, and sending every missing product to the home page reads to Google as a soft 404 rather than a move.
Check redirects against live pages
A Shopify URL redirect only works when nothing exists at the old path. If a live product or page already uses that URL, the page wins, so check the map against the new store’s handles before launch.
Carry over titles and meta descriptions
Rankings are tied to what each page says, not only to its address. Move each page’s title tag and meta description into the search engine listing fields of the matching product, collection, page or post. When those fields are empty, Shopify falls back to the item’s name and the start of its description, which is rarely what was ranking before.
Bring images and alt text with them
Product images move with the catalog, but their URLs change once they are served from Shopify. Image search then depends on the alt text and the page around each image, so carry the alt text over, and write it where the old store had none.
Check structured data on the new theme
Structured data tells search engines what a page is: a product with a price and availability, a breadcrumb trail, an article. Most Shopify themes output product data, but not always everything the old store had, such as review ratings or breadcrumbs. Test the key templates with Google’s Rich Results Test before launch and fill the gaps in the theme.
Freeze the catalog during the switch
Between the final data import and the domain switch, the catalog should not change. Agree on a short freeze for products, prices and content, so nothing created on the old store at the last minute ends up without a page or a redirect. Orders keep coming in on the old store until the domain points to Shopify.
Monitor the launch in Search Console
After the domain switch, verify the new store in Google Search Console and submit its sitemap, which Shopify generates at /sitemap.xml. Then, for the following weeks:
- watch the Pages report for new 404s and crawl errors,
- compare clicks and impressions for the pages that mattered most before the move,
- add any missing redirect as soon as it shows up.
Rankings can move for a while as Google recrawls the store. Fixing gaps as they appear is what keeps that period short.
Case study
A migration from PrestaShop to Shopify with thousands of products, with SEO preserved.
What this means for your store
A migration keeps its search traffic when the work is planned around URLs from the start: a complete map, a 301 for every old address, metadata and alt text carried over, and a launch someone watches. None of it is complicated, but each step is easy to skip under a deadline. If your store has years of search history, plan the redirects before you plan the design.
