Migrating platform without losing SEO (redirects, checklist)

Changing platform is one of the riskiest moments in an e-shop's life. We have seen stores lose a large share of organic traffic the day after launch, not because the new platform was worse, but because nobody planned the redirects. Old URLs returned 404s, rankings disappeared, and recovery took months.

The good news: with proper planning, a migration can go through without lasting damage. Some fluctuation in the first few weeks is normal. A permanent drop is not.

Phase 1: Before you touch anything

Inventory everything

You need a complete list of the old site's URLs. Sources:

• A crawl of the current site (Screaming Frog or similar).
• The old platform's XML sitemaps.
• Search Console: pages with impressions over the last 12–16 months.
• Analytics: landing pages with traffic.
• Backlinks: pages with external links (from Search Console or a backlink tool).

Merge them into one spreadsheet. Some URLs will only show up in one source, often old pages with backlinks that are no longer in the navigation.

Record a benchmark

Save today's numbers: organic clicks per page, rankings for key phrases, revenue from organic traffic, number of indexed pages. Without them you will not know if something went wrong.

Pick your moment

Do not launch a week before Black Friday or at the start of your peak season. Choose your quietest period and a weekday, not Friday afternoon.

Phase 2: Plan URLs and redirects

Keep URLs where you can

The best redirect is the one you do not need. If the new platform allows it, keep the same URL structure. That is easier on WooCommerce and custom builds. Shopify's structure is fixed (/products/, /collections/), so redirects are almost always needed there.

The redirect map

Every old URL gets a new URL. Rules:

• 301 (permanent), not 302.
• One-to-one: old product to new product, old category to new category. Not everything to the homepage.
• No chains: old → new directly, not old → intermediate → new. Account for any redirects that already existed on the old site.
• Parameters: if old URLs looked like ?id=123, make sure the new platform can redirect based on the parameter.
• Images and PDFs: if your images get traffic from Google Images, map those too.

For shops with thousands of products, build the map by matching SKUs: the SKU is usually the only stable identifier between old and new platforms.

Phase 3: The new site on staging

Before launch, on staging (which should be password-protected or noindexed):

• [ ] Titles, meta descriptions and H1s migrated, not just the products
• [ ] Product and category copy carried over intact (or improved)
• [ ] Canonicals correct and not pointing at the staging domain
• [ ] Product schema working (Rich Results Test)
• [ ] Breadcrumbs and internal links in place
• [ ] Customer reviews migrated
• [ ] hreflang, if you run multiple languages
• [ ] Speed and Core Web Vitals at least as good as before
• [ ] XML feeds (Skroutz, BestPrice, Google Merchant Center) generate correctly, keeping the same product IDs where possible

That last one is often forgotten. If product IDs change in your Skroutz feed, your products can lose their match with existing listings. Talk to the platform before launch.

Phase 4: Launch day

1. Switch on the redirects at the same moment as the new site.
2. Remove staging's noindex and password. (This is the most common and most damaging mistake.)
3. Check robots.txt: is anything important blocked?
4. Run the full list of old URLs through a crawler: each should return a 301 to a page that returns 200.
5. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console.
6. Update feed URLs in Skroutz, BestPrice and Merchant Center.
7. Check analytics, pixels and conversion tracking: are purchases being recorded?
8. Place a real order, once by card and once with cash on delivery.

Phase 5: The first weeks

• Daily in week one: Search Console for 404s and errors, analytics for drops in traffic or revenue by channel.
• Weekly for two to three months: compare rankings and clicks with your benchmark.
• Keep the old sitemap submitted for a while so Google recrawls old URLs and sees the redirects.
• If you have important backlinks, ask those sites to update the link. Not essential, but it helps.
• Do not remove the redirects. Keep them as long as possible, ideally permanently.

Common mistakes

• Staging's noindex left on the live site.
• Every old URL redirected to the homepage.
• Changing domain, platform and design all at once. The fewer simultaneous changes, the easier it is to find the cause of a problem.
• Content "simplified" along the way: category copy not migrated, FAQs dropped.
• Product IDs changed in feeds without coordinating with the price comparison platforms.

Final checklist

• [ ] Full list of old URLs from crawl, sitemaps, Search Console, analytics and backlinks
• [ ] Benchmark of traffic, rankings and revenue
• [ ] 1:1 redirect map, 301s, no chains
• [ ] SEO elements and feeds checked on staging
• [ ] Launch in a quiet period
• [ ] noindex removed, robots.txt checked, new sitemap submitted
• [ ] Every old URL tested after launch
• [ ] Monitoring for at least two to three months

A migration is worth doing carefully rather than quickly. If you are considering a platform change, we can handle everything from the new build to the redirect map and post-launch monitoring. Tell us where you are and what you have in mind.