Shopify SEO migration audit checklist

Trailing 12 months of indexed URLs. This is the input for the redirect map. Without it, the map will miss long-tail URLs that drive slow organic traffic loss post-launch.

Twelve months of server logs filtered for organic search traffic. Surfaces URLs that may be indexed but rarely surfaced in Search Console.

Full crawl of the source platform captures the URL universe, meta tags, structured data, and internal linking pattern. The crawl output supports validation later.

Not all indexed URLs are equal. Sort by trailing 12-month organic traffic so the redirect map prioritises high-value URLs and treats long-tail URLs proportionally.

Baseline ranking data for the most important keywords. Required for measuring post-migration ranking impact accurately.

Monthly organic revenue trailing 6-12 months by category. Required for post-launch validation that revenue is not silently disappearing.

Columns: source URL, target Shopify URL, disposition (redirect / retire 410 / canonical change), notes, validated (bool). The structured format keeps the work organised across thousands of URLs.

Source-platform product URLs to Shopify product URLs. Usually the bulk of the map by row count, often the cleanest mapping because product structure tends to be consistent.

Source category URLs to Shopify collection URLs. The category structure may not survive the migration cleanly; document the merge or split decisions explicitly.

Content URLs are where the long-tail organic traffic lives. Map each blog post and landing page; document the retirement decisions for content not migrating.

URL parameters (?utm_, ?ref=), faceted search URLs, paginated URLs, search-result URLs — each pattern needs a disposition rule. Often the source of post-launch 404 spikes if missed.

Have an SEO specialist who did not build the map review it for gaps. Catches systematic misses; a second pair of eyes consistently finds 5-10% additional URLs needing attention.

Source meta titles to Shopify equivalents. Either migrate explicitly via Matrixify or template-generate using the same logic as the source platform. Inconsistency surfaces as ranking loss.

Same pattern as meta titles. Custom meta descriptions outrank template-generated ones for high-traffic pages; preserve them explicitly.

Shopify generates canonicals automatically; verify the canonicals point to the right URLs for products, collections, and content. Mismapped canonicals consolidate ranking signal in the wrong places.

Shopify themes typically include Product schema; verify rendering on a sample of products. Review apps (Yotpo, Stamped) implement Review schema; verify integration.

Shopify generates sitemaps automatically; verify the sitemap includes all migrated pages and excludes pages flagged noindex. Custom sitemap segments may need explicit configuration.

Shopify's default robots.txt is permissive; customise via robots.txt.liquid if specific paths need exclusion. Verify noindex flags on dev/staging URLs and any retired content.

For each row in the map, verify the redirect fires correctly on the staging Shopify environment. The test pass is mechanical but mandatory; catches map errors before they hit production.

Compare staging crawl output to source-site crawl. Identifies on-page parity gaps, missing meta tags, missing structured data. Fix gaps before launch.

Search Console URL inspection on a sample of staging URLs surfaces any indexing or rendering issues Google will see. Catches issues that automated crawlers miss.

Last data point before the change. Required for measuring the launch-day impact accurately. Document the exact timestamp.

First-hour validation that the loaded redirect map is firing in production. Smoke-test a sample of 20-30 URLs across products, collections, and content.

Shopify-generated sitemap submitted to Google Search Console immediately at launch. Accelerates re-crawling of the new structure.

Forces Google to crawl the new structure quickly on the highest-value pages. Document any rendering issues immediately.

Internal links from the homepage, category pages, and product pages must point to the new Shopify URLs. Broken internal linking inhibits crawl propagation across the site.

First week 404s reveal the most systematic redirect-map gaps. Daily review of Search Console crawl-error reports catches and fixes these quickly.

Track ranking trends weekly against the baseline. Sustained drops in week 2-4 indicate redirect-map gaps that the 404 monitoring may have missed.

Long-tail URLs surface as 404s gradually. Daily monitoring through week 4 catches them as they appear; weekly monitoring lets traffic erosion compound.

Compare weekly organic revenue against baseline. Larger-than-expected gaps point to ranking loss not yet visible in keyword tracking. Acts as a leading indicator.

Cadence relaxes after initial stabilisation but does not stop. Weekly reviews catch the remaining long-tail URLs and confirm the redirect map is complete.

Index Coverage report reveals indexed-vs-not-indexed status across the migrated site. Drops in indexed-page count flag missed content.

Recovery starts with diagnosis. Redirect map gaps, on-page parity issues, and index coverage problems each have different fixes. Identify the source before responding.

For each missing or broken redirect, add the correct rule. Prioritise URLs with the highest pre-migration organic traffic. Validate each fix.

Meta titles, descriptions, structured data, internal linking. Fix on the URLs that matter most first; long-tail can wait.

Force re-crawl of fixed URLs to accelerate recovery. Without re-submission, Google's natural re-crawl cadence may take weeks.

Track recovery trajectory week-over-week. Recovery typically follows a curve — sharp initial improvement, then slow approach to baseline. Recovery taking longer than 8 weeks suggests deeper issues warranting fresh diagnosis.