Shopify migration SEO
A migration to Shopify changes every URL on your store in one afternoon. Search engines have spent years learning the old ones. Shopify migration SEO is the work of carrying that history across: a full crawl of the old site, a redirect for every URL that matters, and someone watching Google Search Console for the ninety days after launch. Done in the right order, a store keeps its rankings and organic traffic. Done after the build, which is how most are done, it loses a third of them and spends six months getting them back.
A £1,000 deposit, then 11 monthly payments, or £5,500 for the year. That buys up to five target keywords, a named consultant, and a monthly roadmap you can read in ten minutes.
See all three packagesWhere this fits in your campaign
People search for migration help at two moments. Before the move, looking for a Shopify SEO migration checklist, and about three weeks after it, when organic traffic has dropped and nobody can say why. The second group is larger. If you are in the first, you are already ahead of most stores that replatform.
The redirect map is written before the build, not after launch
Shopify forces a new URL structure: /products/, /collections/, /pages/, /blogs/. Almost none of your old URLs will survive unchanged, so every one that has rankings, links or traffic needs a 301 redirect to its new home. That list takes days to build properly and it cannot be done in the last week.
The traffic is usually lost in the content, not the redirects
Category copy left behind, title tags reset to theme defaults, product descriptions shortened by whoever did the data import. The redirects can be perfect and the rankings still fall, because the page Google arrives at says less than the one it replaced.
What actually changes when you migrate to Shopify
Moving an ecommerce platform to Shopify is not like changing a theme. Four things change at once, and search engines notice all four.
- 01
Every URL
Shopify uses a fixed URL structure. A WooCommerce product at /shop/walking-boots/ becomes /products/walking-boots. A Magento category at /mens/footwear.html becomes /collections/mens-footwear. There is no setting that keeps the old paths.
- 02
The site structure
Shopify has collections, not nested categories. A three-level category tree has to be redesigned as collections, sub collections linked through navigation, and filters. How that is done decides which pages can rank afterwards.
- 03
The templates
Headings, internal linking, breadcrumbs, structured data and page speed all come from the new Shopify theme. Some of it will be better than what you had. Some of it will be missing.
- 04
The content
Whatever is not deliberately moved is lost. Category descriptions, buying guides, FAQs on product pages, image alt text and the old blog are the usual casualties.
The Shopify SEO migration checklist we work to
This is the order the work happens in. The order is the point: most of the damage in a migration comes from doing step four before step two.
- Benchmark. Export twelve months of Google Search Console and Google Analytics data: every page with clicks, every query, every page with revenue. This is the list of what must survive, and the evidence afterwards if anything does not.
- Crawl the old site. A full crawl with a tool like Screaming Frog, plus the XML sitemap, plus every URL with backlinks, plus everything Search Console reports as indexed. Old URLs that no longer appear in the navigation are often the ones carrying links.
- Map every URL. Each old URL gets one destination on the new store: the matching product, the matching collection, or the closest relevant page. Not the home page. A redirect to the home page is treated by Google as a soft 404 and passes nothing.
- Plan the collections. Decide the new site structure against keyword rankings, so every category that ranked has a collection to land on and every collection has a reason to exist.
- Move the content and metadata. Title tags, meta descriptions, category copy, product descriptions, alt text and structured data are transferred and checked on the new templates, not assumed.
- Test on the staging store. Crawl the new Shopify store before launch. Check canonicals, internal links, the robots.txt, page speed, and that the redirect file resolves every old URL in one hop with no chains.
- Launch. Upload the 301 redirects, switch the domain, submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console, and crawl the old URL list against the live site the same day.
- Monitor for ninety days. Watch 404 errors, crawl stats, index coverage and keyword rankings weekly. Fix broken links and missed redirects as they surface. They always do.
301 redirects on Shopify: what it can and cannot do
Shopify manages redirects in the admin under Navigation, and accepts a CSV upload, which is how a migration of any size should be done. You have no server access, so there is no .htaccess and no pattern-matching rules. Every old URL needs its own line.
Two limits catch people out. Shopify will only redirect a path that does not resolve to a live page, so an old URL cannot be redirected if something on the new store already answers at that address. And redirects from paths Shopify reserves for itself, such as /cart or /apps, will not work at all. Both are worth knowing before the mapping is written rather than on launch day.
Query-string URLs from the old platform, such as ?product_id=123, need particular care because Shopify matches redirects on the path. Where those URLs carry links or traffic, the fix sometimes has to sit in front of Shopify, at the DNS or CDN layer. We check for this at the crawl stage so it is priced into the plan.
What a traffic loss looks like, and when to worry
Some movement after a migration is normal. Search engines have to recrawl the site, follow every redirect and reassess pages on new templates. A dip of ten to fifteen per cent that recovers inside four to six weeks is within the range of a well-run migration.
The patterns that are not normal: organic traffic falling by a third or more in the first fortnight, a spike in 404 errors in Search Console, whole sections of the old site dropping out of the index with nothing replacing them, or rankings lost on category terms while brand terms hold. Each points to a different cause, which is why the benchmark matters. Without it you are guessing.
If you are reading this after the fact, most of it is recoverable. Old URLs can still be redirected months later and Google will pick them up. Content can be restored from the Wayback Machine or a database backup. The sooner it is done the more comes back. We treat rescues as technical SEO work and start with the same crawl.
When to migrate, and how much it costs
Do not migrate in the three months before your peak season. If Christmas is half your year, a migration belongs in February, not October. Six months of clear water before peak is the comfortable margin, because it leaves time for rankings to settle and for anything missed to be found.
Shopify itself costs from a few tens of pounds a month on the standard Shopify plans to four figures a month on Shopify Plus. The build is priced by whoever builds it. The SEO side of a migration is usually a fixed project: for a store of a few hundred URLs it is measured in days, and for several thousand in weeks. We quote it after the crawl, because the crawl is what tells us how much there is to map.
It is often bought alongside an ongoing campaign, in which case see the SEO packages. The E-Commerce package at £1,497 a month plus VAT is where most stores of this size sit. For the wider picture of what Shopify does to SEO once you are on it, start with Shopify SEO.
Four steps, then round again
SEO never finishes. The work runs on a loop, and you see the report every time round, good month or bad.
- Step 1
Keyword research
We start with the terms that show buying intent, not the ones with the biggest numbers. Alongside those, lower-competition terms that rank sooner and bring early results.
- Step 2
Competitor analysis
Then we look at who outranks you and why. Once we know what they are doing, we know what it takes to beat it.
- Step 3
Implementation
The team does the work: on-page fixes, new content, links and local signals. Every item is listed in your monthly report, not buried in a dashboard.
- Step 4
Reporting & revision
Each month you see what was done and what it moved. When something is not working, we change it rather than wait for it to come good.
Three packages. Prices included.
Pick the one that matches where your customers are. Pay for the year, or a deposit and eleven monthly payments. Either way, the number on this page is the number on the invoice.
- Up to 5 keywords per campaign
- Up to 5 URLs included
- GMB post every 14 days
- 1+ new landing page or article
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
- Up to 10 keywords per campaign
- Up to 10 URLs included
- GMB post every 7 days
- 2+ new landing pages or articles
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
- Up to 20 keywords per campaign
- Up to 10 URLs included
- GMB post every 4 days
- 5+ new landing pages or articles
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
Every package includes keyword analysis, heading tags and meta description optimisation, image alt tag analysis, duplicate content checks, sitemap creation, mobile responsiveness reporting, citations, load time testing and search engine reports. All prices are subject to change. Budgeting for the website too? Here iswhat a website should actually cost.
Need something fixed this week?
Unexpected deadline, site down, or let down by another agency? Call and we will tell you straight away whether we can help.
Straight answers to the usual questions
How can I migrate my website to Shopify without losing SEO?
Crawl the old site and benchmark its traffic before anything is built, map every old URL to a specific new one, move the content and metadata deliberately, and test the redirects on staging before launch. Then monitor Google Search Console for ninety days and fix what surfaces. Stores lose rankings when the redirect map is written in the last week or not at all, not because Shopify is worse for SEO.
What is SEO migration?
SEO migration is the work of protecting a site’s search visibility through a major change: a new platform, a new domain, or a restructure. For a move to Shopify it means carrying rankings across a complete change of URL structure using 301 redirects, preserving the content and metadata those rankings depend on, and checking the new templates give search engines everything the old ones did.
How long does it take for rankings to recover after a Shopify migration?
With a complete redirect map and the content carried over, most stores see rankings settle within four to six weeks, and many see no meaningful dip at all. Where redirects were missed or content was dropped, recovery starts when that is fixed and typically takes two to four months from then. Pages that lost backlinks because their old URLs now 404 will not recover until those URLs are redirected.
Do I need Shopify Plus for a migration?
Not for SEO reasons. Standard Shopify plans and Shopify Plus share the same URL structure, the same redirect tools and the same theme system. Plus adds things like higher API limits, more staff accounts, checkout customisation and B2B features, which matter for large catalogues and complex operations. Choose it for those reasons, not because an agency has told you it ranks better.
Can you fix a Shopify migration that has already lost traffic?
Usually, yes. We rebuild the old URL list from Search Console, backlink data, the Wayback Machine and any old sitemap, redirect everything that was missed, and restore lost category and product content. Google does revisit old URLs for a long time after a move, so late redirects still work. The sooner it is done, the more of the original rankings come back.
Will my product data and customer accounts transfer to Shopify?
Products, customers and order history can be imported with Shopify’s own tools or a migration app, but check the result line by line. Imports commonly truncate long descriptions, drop image alt text, flatten variants and lose anything held in custom fields. Customer passwords cannot be transferred, so customers are invited to reactivate their accounts. None of this is an SEO problem until the shortened descriptions go live.
Guides that go deeper
Free, written by the people who would run your campaign.
- Shopify migration checklistRedirects, data and checks before you switch
- Lost rankings after a redesignWhere a Shopify rebuild usually leaks traffic
- Magento to Shopify migration SEOURL patterns, redirect limits and launch checks
SEO on the other platforms we work on
- Shopify collection page SEOCollection keyword research and mapping · New collections for searches you do not cover · Collection descriptions and on-page content
- Shopify product page SEOProduct titles and page titles · Unique product descriptions · Product images and alt text
- Ecommerce SEOShopify stores · WooCommerce stores · Magento
- WooCommerce SEOWooCommerce and WordPress stores · Stores on shared or cheap hosting · Page-builder builds (Elementor, Divi, WPBakery)
- Shopify SEOShopify and Shopify Plus stores · Collection and tag structure · Stores migrated from WooCommerce or Magento
Ready when you are
Tell us what you are trying to rank for and we will look at the site and the search results before we reply. You get a straight answer, including if SEO is not the right spend for you yet.