The nightmare scenario for any merchant: You launch your beautiful new Shopify store, but your traffic drops to zero because Google can no longer find your products. This guide explains exactly how to prevent that disaster. By following our SEO preservation protocol, you can transfer your rankings, traffic, and domain authority along with your data.

Why is SEO at Risk During Migration?

Google indexes your store based on specific URLs (e.g., mystore.com/products/blue-shirt). When you move to Shopify, your URL structure often changes by default (e.g., to mystore.com/products/blue-shirt or mystore.com/collections/category/products/blue-shirt).

If you delete the old site and launch the new one without telling Google where the pages went, you create "broken links" (404 errors). Google punishes this by dropping your rankings, effectively erasing years of SEO work. The solution is a strategy called 301 Redirection.

Phase 1: Pre-Migration SEO Audit

You cannot protect what you haven't measured. Before migrating, create a benchmark of your current performance.

1. Crawl Your Current Site

Use a tool like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to crawl your existing store. You need a complete list of every live URL, including:

Product pages
Category/Collection pages
Blog posts
CMS pages (About, Contact, Policy pages)

2. Export Your Metadata

Ensure you have a backup of your Meta Titles, Meta Descriptions, and Keywords. If you are using a hosted platform (like BigCommerce or Wix), you can usually export products to CSV to save this data. For self-hosted platforms like WooCommerce, use an SEO plugin export feature.

3. Document Current Rankings

Use Google Search Console to export your current top-performing pages and their rankings. This gives you a baseline to compare after migration.

Phase 2: The Migration Strategy

Here is how to use Migration Shop features to automate the protection of your SEO.

1. The "301 Redirect" Feature

This is the most critical step. A 301 Redirect is a permanent signpost that tells search engines: "The page moved from Address A to Address B. Please transfer all ranking power to Address B."

Migration Shop Solution: When configuring your migration, check the box labeled "Create 301 Redirects on Target Store". Our system automatically maps your old URLs to your new Shopify URLs, saving you from creating thousands of redirects manually.

2. Preserve URL Structure When Possible

If you want your new Shopify links to look exactly like your old links (e.g., keeping /products/ instead of changing to /collections/category/products/), you can configure Shopify's URL structure in Online Store > Navigation and use Migration Shop's URL preservation options.

3. Transfer Images and Alt Text

Google Image Search is a major traffic source for eCommerce. If you migrate products but fail to migrate the "Alt Text" (the description of the image), you lose visibility. Ensure your migration plan includes full media transfer with alt text preservation.

4. Migrate Meta Data

Ensure product meta titles, descriptions, and SEO-friendly URLs transfer to Shopify. Migration Shop preserves this data automatically.

Phase 3: Post-Migration SEO Checklist

Once the migration is finished and your store is live, perform these immediate actions to "ping" Google.

1. Generate a New Sitemap

Shopify automatically generates a standard XML sitemap at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. You can also access it via yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml for the main sitemap index.

2. Google Search Console (GSC) Actions

Verify the New Site: Ensure GSC has verified ownership of your new Shopify store.
Submit the Sitemap: Go to Sitemaps in GSC and submit your new sitemap URL (https://yourstore.com/sitemap.xml).
Request Indexing: For your Homepage and top-selling Collection pages, use the "URL Inspection" tool to manually request re-indexing.
Monitor Coverage: Check the Coverage report in GSC to ensure all important pages are indexed.

3. Test Redirects

Do not assume they work. Click on 10 random old URLs from your spreadsheet. They should instantly load the corresponding product on the new site. If you see a 404 error, the redirect failed. Fix it immediately in Shopify's Online Store > Navigation > URL Redirects.

4. Monitor 404 Errors

Use Google Search Console's Coverage report to monitor for 404 errors. Check this daily for the first two weeks and fix any broken paths immediately by creating redirects in Shopify admin.

5. Update Internal Links

Review your blog posts and pages to ensure internal links point to the correct Shopify URLs. Update any hardcoded links in your content using Shopify's page editor.

Common SEO Pitfalls to Avoid

The "Soft 404" Trap

Do not redirect all deleted products to your Homepage. Google treats this as a "Soft 404" and will stop ranking those keywords. Always redirect a deleted product to its parent collection, not the homepage.

Speed is a Ranking Factor

Shopify's infrastructure is optimized for speed, but you can further optimize:

Image Optimization: Compress images before uploading or use Shopify's built-in image optimization.
Theme Selection: Choose a lightweight, fast-loading theme from the Shopify Theme Store.
App Audit: Too many apps can slow down your store. Regularly audit and remove unused apps.
Use Shopify's CDN: Shopify automatically uses a global CDN, but ensure your theme is optimized to leverage it.

Internal Linking Structure

If you had blog posts linking to products on your old site, those links might break during migration. Use Shopify's link checker or a third-party tool to scan your content and update internal hyperlinks.

Duplicate Content Issues

Ensure your product pages don't have duplicate content issues. Use canonical tags properly (Shopify handles this automatically, but verify in your theme settings).

Structured Data

Shopify automatically includes structured data (Schema.org markup) for products, but verify it's working correctly using Google's Rich Results Test tool. This helps with rich snippets in search results.

You don't have to choose between a better platform and your search rankings. With careful planning and the automated tools provided by Migration Shop, you can move your store while keeping your hard-earned SEO juice intact.

Ready to move? Start your Free Demo Migration and select the "301 Redirect" option to see how we preserve your data and SEO.

Preserve SEO in Shopify Migrations