Operator context
Longer answer
The mechanic is straightforward but the discipline is hard. Every indexed URL on the source platform needs a documented disposition: a redirect target on Shopify, a retire-with-410 marker, or a canonical change. The redirect map captures this and becomes the operational artifact that determines outcomes.
The build phase: Search Console export of indexed URLs, server log analysis of organic landing pages over trailing 12 months, Screaming Frog crawl of the source site. The output is a CSV mapping every source URL to its Shopify target. This work happens during discovery, not during launch week.
The validation phase: stage the Shopify store, load the redirect map into Easy Redirects or the chosen tool, test every URL in the map against the staging environment before going live. Brands that skip validation consistently discover map errors at launch instead of in staging.
The monitoring phase: daily 404 monitoring via Search Console for eight weeks post-launch. Every 404 is either a missing redirect (add it) or a deprecated URL (acceptable). Brands that monitor for two weeks then stop consistently miss the long-tail URLs that drive the slow part of the traffic drop. The eight-week discipline is the discipline.