Magento to Shopify or Shopify Plus SEO Friendly Migration Detailed Guide for Small to Large Retailers (1)
                     




 


 
Planning on switching to Shopify? 

Would like to see how Shopify back-end looks? Click this image for free Shopify trial:

 
https://www.shopify.com/?ref=adex-labs 

Many retailers wish to migrate the website to Shopify, but they are afraid of losing traffic so the 
business after migration. 

This post covers the complete & step by step migration re-platforming/re-branding 
guidelines/checklist for your web store. 

Source Platforms: Magento, Yahoo, Woo-commerce, Bigcommerce, CS Cart, Cubecart, Drupal 
Commerce, IBM WebSphere Commerce, Netsuite, OpenCart, PrestaShop, Shopware, Volusion, 
X-Cart, Yahoo! Ecommerce, Zen Cart, nopCommerce, osCommerce, Spree or any other. 

This guide is applicable to all platforms. 

 

 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
Why Shopify? 

If you would like to get most out of your e-commerce business, only think about Shopify. Below 
are some features which make this platform more robust: 

Built-in Speed & Security 
SEO friendly & options for SEO in the backend 
Abandoned cart recovery feature 
Free SSL certificate 
Fraud analysis 
Scalable platform 
Professional reports, Advanced Analysis 
No need to update CMS or extension/plugin 
Includes blogging platform 
Ample amount of available extensions/apps 
and many other features… 
 
 

 

 

 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
Table Of Content 

Pre-Launch Migration Checklist 

● Rebranding Overview 
● Download the website for browsing anytime after migration 
● Collect Website URLs 
● Data Migration – Products, Categories, Orders, Customers, Stock, etc. 
● Update internal links 
● SEO friendly theme structure 
● SEO Tags 
● Canonical URL strategy 
● Your page title and meta description strategy 
● Site speed 
● 301 URL Redirects -Simple URLs & Complex URLs 
● Make a custom 404 page 
● Google Search Console for the old site 
● Juice from 404 links – see 404 URL in webmaster tools 

 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
While Migration 

● Make a New Site Ready for Google Search Console 
● Rebranding – Submit a change of address 
● Ensure that Google Analytics or other tracking applications are collecting data 
● Annotate the launch in Google Analytics and other analytics programs 
● Test URL redirects 
● Submit XML Sitemap 

 

Post-Launch Migration Checklist 

● Increase Crawl Rate 
● Monitor errors 
● Check the number of indexed pages 

 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
Rebranding Overview 

Most of the people are afraid of rebranding due to the thought that they may lose traffic due to 
rebranding. But this is not a case always. How to carry out steps for this is explained in next 
points. 

Download the website for browsing anytime after migration 

While leaving old host or platform, you may need an old website to compare with a new site in 
future. For this purpose, you will have to download the website. Everything will remain in your 
local computer & you will be able to check the website anytime. 

To download the website, you can use the tool called​ ​HTTrack Website Copier​. 

Collect Website URLs 

URL redirects are the most important factor to retain website traffic even after migration. So, 
make sure to collect a list of website URLs. 

You can use Use Screaming Frog or Xenu to crawl the website & collect the list of URLs. 

 

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Data Migration – Products, Categories, Orders, Customers, Stock, etc. 

You may have to migrate Products, Categories, Historical orders, Customers, Stock, Gift cards, 
certificates, store credits, Blogs, Pages (shipping policy, contact, and other web pages), Product 
reviews. 

There are some paid apps available for automated migration. Migration can be done using CSV 
files as well. You can use CSV file for Products, Customer migration but not other things. 

Update internal links 

When you have old website links within the content of the website, it’s a better idea to replace 
with new links. This step is important if you have so many internal links otherwise you can ignore 
this as redirects can handle everything. Also, make sure that the link doesn’t go to non-existing 
links which can create 404 issue. 

 

 

 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
SEO friendly theme structure 

SEO Tags 

Make sure to have the theme SEO friendly. Below are some notes to make the theme SEO 
friendly. 

Every Page must have the h1 tag & there shouldn’t be more than one h1 tag in a webpage. 

Product title on the product page, Blog title on blog post page, Page title on Pages should be in 
H1. 

Product Names on Collection page or product collections on other pages should have product 
titles in h2 

Other subheadings should be in h2, h3, h4. 

Canonical URL strategy 

If some pages are also accessible using more that one URL, it’s better to notify search engines 
using the canonical tag to avoid duplicate content penalty. 

Shopify support URL canonicalization. Make sure to have code in your theme to handle canonical 
URLs. 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
So, SEO Tags & Canonical URL strategy are important for SEO friendly theme structure. 

Your page title and meta description strategy 

If you have optimized title & meta description tags on the old website, make sure to migrate them. 
If you leave these two tags blank, Shopify will use product names as title tags & description as 
meta descriptions. For other pages, title tags will be page title & meta tag will be descriptions. 

Site speed 

In most of the cases, Shopify sites are fast & you can skip further optimization of website speed if 
your website loads within five seconds. You can use following tools to see suggestions for speed 
optimization: 

1) ​PageSpeed Insights – Google Developers 

2) ​Pingdom Website Speed Test 

3) ​GTmetrix 

 

 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
301 URL Redirects 

While working on 301 redirects, you will have to deal with two types of URLs. 

1) Simple URLs 

E.g. example.com/navy-blue-t-shirt 

example.com/shipping-policy 

 
Shopify 301 URL Redirects 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
This is how URL redirects work. 

 

2) Complex or Pattern-based URLs 

E.g. example.com/tshirts-category?page=1 

example.com/tshirts-category?page=2 

Let’s consider that the destination URL is example.com/collection/tshirts-category 

You don’t need to worry about all variations of source URLs. Just use 
example.com/tshirts-category in old path & all URLs will be handled automatically with redirection 
as well as canonical URLs. 

Make a custom 404 page 

Don’t get hurt with a bad 404 page but use 404 page to boost your SEO. Create a custom 404 
page with a branded design & website navigation options. Navigation options will keep customers 
stick to the site without leaving immediately. 

 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
Google Search Console for Old site 

If you don’t have Google search console for the old site, make sure to install it. 

Juice from 404 links 

Use Google Search Console to see if there is any URL any important 404 URL which has 
backlinks & pointing to 404 page. 

 

While Migration 

Make a New Site Ready for Google Search Console 

Make sure to have the new store verified in Google console to track data flawlessly even after 
migration. 

 

 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
Rebranding – Submit a change of address 

Please ignore this step if you are not looking for rebranding. 

If you are looking for rebranding or changing domain after migration, don’t forget to add the new 
website to Google console account. 

Now, open old domain in Google console account & make sure to notify Google regarding 
address change. 

 
Change of Address Google Search Console 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
This step suggests Google that you are looking for re-branding & SEO juice can be retained even 
after domain change. 

It can take upto 180 days for Google to complete change of address process. During this period, 
website traffic can drop. 

 

Google Analytics Tracking Review 

Ensure that Google Analytics or any other visitor tracking tool is tracking data correctly for the 
new website. You can use the same or different analytics account for the new domain. 

Annotate the launch in Google Analytics and other analytics programs 

If you are going to use the same Google Analytics account, make sure to annotate which can 
help you remember migration date. 

Test URL redirects 

Make sure one more time that the URL redirects are working properly. 

 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
Submit XML Sitemap 

Make sure to submit the sitemap to Google & Bing console. 

For your Shopify site, you can find the sitemap URL at /sitemap.xml 

If your domain name is yourdomain.com, get the sitemap at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml 

 

Post-Launch Migration Checklist 

Increase Crawl Rate 

After migration, make sure to increase crawl rate from Google Search Console. Increasing crawl 
rate can help search engine index new URL faster & new data can be updated more frequently. 

Monitor errors 

Schedule error monitoring on daily basis or 2-3 times a week. You can monitor 404 errors in 
Google Search Console. 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com 


 
Check the number of indexed pages 

Check the number of indexed pages in the search engine and google console. You can use 
site:yourdomain.com search query to see the number of indexed pages. 

 

© Adex Labs 2018 | ​adexlabs.com