Moving your website to Shopify without losing your Google rankings

Can I move my website to Shopify without losing my Google rankings?

Yes, if you plan it. Rankings are lost in a migration when old addresses stop working. Google has learnt where your pages live, and other sites link to them. If those addresses return a "page not found" after the move, Google slowly drops them and the links pointing at them stop counting.

The fix is simple to describe and fiddly to do: list every page on your current site, decide where each one will live on Shopify, and set up a permanent redirect from each old address to its new one before you switch the domain over. Keep your page titles and descriptions, resubmit your sitemap, and expect things to wobble for a few weeks before they settle.

The checklist below is the order we work through it, whether the old site is on Wix, WordPress, Squarespace or something custom.

Why do URLs change when you move to Shopify?

Shopify uses fixed paths for each type of content, and you can't change them:

• Products live at /products/product-name
• Collections (categories) live at /collections/collection-name
• Ordinary pages live at /pages/page-name
• Blog posts live at /blogs/blog-name/post-name

Your home page stays at the root of your domain, but almost everything else will move. A Wix page at /hair-colour becomes something like /pages/hair-colour. A WordPress post at /2024/05/balayage-aftercare becomes /blogs/news/balayage-aftercare. A WooCommerce product at /shop/shampoo-300ml becomes /products/shampoo-300ml. Every one of those changes needs a redirect.

Step 1: List every URL on your current site

Don't rely on your menu. Old blog posts, landing pages from past promotions and product pages you forgot about often bring in steady search traffic. Pull your list from three places:

• Google Search Console. The Pages report (under Indexing) shows what Google has indexed, and the Performance report shows which pages actually get clicks. Export both. If you don't have Search Console set up, do it now, before anything changes.
• Your current sitemap. Most platforms publish one at yourdomain.co.nz/sitemap.xml. Open it in a browser and copy out every address.
• Your analytics. If you use Google Analytics, export the landing pages report for the last 12 months.

Paste them into one spreadsheet and remove duplicates. Then mark the pages that matter most: anything that gets clicks from Google, anything other websites link to, and anything you've printed on cards, flyers or packaging.

Step 2: Map each old URL to its new Shopify URL

Add a second column to the spreadsheet with the new address for each old one. Google's own guidance on site moves is clear on how to do this well:

• Send each old page to the closest matching new page, not to the home page. Dumping lots of old pages on the home page looks like a dead end to Google.
• Redirect straight to the final address. Avoid chains where page A redirects to B, which redirects to C.
• Where a page genuinely has no replacement (an old staff profile, a discontinued product), send it to the most relevant collection or page.

This is also a good time to keep the last part of each address the same where you can. If your old product was /shop/repair-mask, giving the Shopify product the handle repair-mask makes the mapping easy to check and keeps the address recognisable.

Step 3: Move your content and product data

For products, Shopify supports importing a CSV file from Products > Import in the admin. Most platforms can export products to CSV, but the columns rarely line up exactly, so expect to tidy the file to match Shopify's product CSV format. Shopify's help docs note a 15 MB limit per file and that an import can't be cancelled once it starts, so test with a few products first.

For pages and blog posts, there's usually no clean export from Wix or Squarespace, so content is often copied across by hand. It's tedious, but it's also a chance to drop pages nobody reads and fix out-of-date prices or staff details.

Things that are easy to forget:

• Product images and their alt text
• Variants, such as sizes or colours, and their stock levels
• Customer accounts and order history, if you were already selling online
• Your policies: shipping, returns, privacy and terms
• Forms, booking buttons and embedded maps

If the new store is a fresh build rather than a straight copy, our guide to setting up a Shopify store in NZ covers GST, shipping and payments.

Step 4: Keep your page titles and meta descriptions

The page title and description are a big part of what Google shows in search results, and they're often the text your rankings were built on. Copy them across for every page you're keeping. In Shopify, each product, collection, page and blog post has a search engine listing section at the bottom of its edit screen where you set these.

Keep your headings and main body copy close to the original too. A migration isn't the moment to rewrite every page. Move first, let things settle, then improve.

Step 5: Set up URL redirects in Shopify

Shopify has a built-in redirect tool. According to Shopify's help docs on URL redirects, you'll find it under Content > Menus > View URL redirects in the admin. You can add redirects one at a time, or import them all at once from a CSV file, which is where your mapping spreadsheet pays off. Redirects start working straight away.

A few rules from Shopify's docs worth knowing before you start:

• Redirects only work from broken addresses. If the old URL still loads a real page on Shopify, the redirect won't fire. That's rarely an issue for a site coming from another platform, but it matters if you're tidying up an existing Shopify store.
• Some paths can't be redirected. You can't redirect Shopify's own fixed paths such as /products, /collections, /cart or /apps, or collection tag filter URLs.
• Old .html addresses can't be redirected to the same address without the .html. Point them at the new Shopify path instead.
• There's a cap of 100,000 redirects per store, which is far more than a small business site will need.

Shopify's redirects are permanent (301) redirects, which is what Google recommends for a move. Leave them in place. Google suggests keeping redirects for at least a year, and in practice there's no reason to ever remove them.

Step 6: Connect your domain

Once the store is built, redirects are loaded and you've checked everything on Shopify's preview address, connect your domain in Settings > Domains. Keeping the same domain is the single biggest thing you can do to protect your rankings, because Google only has to learn new page addresses, not a whole new site.

Before you change any DNS settings, check who controls your domain and that you can log in to it. If it was registered by a previous developer or through Wix, sort out access first. Pick a quiet time to switch, and keep your old platform running until you've confirmed the new site is live on your domain.

Step 7: Resubmit your sitemap to Google and Bing

Shopify generates your sitemap automatically at yourdomain.co.nz/sitemap.xml, covering products, collections, pages and blog posts. After the switch:

1. In Google Search Console, go to Sitemaps, remove the old sitemap and submit the new one.
2. Do the same in Bing Webmaster Tools. It takes five minutes and covers the searches that don't go through Google.
3. Use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console to request indexing for your most important pages: home, your main service or product collections, and your top-traffic pages from Step 1.
4. Spot-check a handful of old URLs in your browser and confirm each one lands on the right new page.

Search Console may warn you about redirecting URLs from the old sitemap for a while. Google says that's expected during a move.

Step 8: Update your Google Business Profile and other links

Redirects catch old links, but it's better if people never hit them. Update the website link and any booking or menu links on your Google Business Profile, then work through everywhere else your site is linked:

• Instagram, Facebook and TikTok bios
• Your booking system's public profile
• Directory listings and supplier "find a salon" or stockist pages
• Email signatures and email marketing templates
• QR codes on printed material, if they point to a specific page

For more on keeping your local listings consistent, see our local SEO guide for NZ businesses.

What should I expect after the move?

Expect a dip. Google itself says to expect temporary changes in rankings while it recrawls and swaps old addresses for new ones, and for a typical small business site that usually takes a few weeks. Bigger sites take longer.

For the first month, check Search Console once a week. Look for pages showing as "Not found (404)" in the Pages report. Each one is an old URL you missed, and you can add a redirect for it straight away. If traffic hasn't started to recover after a couple of months, it's usually a sign that important pages weren't redirected or that their titles and content changed more than intended.

Wix, WordPress or Squarespace: does it make a difference?

The checklist is the same. What changes is how much can be exported. WordPress and WooCommerce export products and posts reasonably well. Wix and Squarespace are more limited, so more content gets moved by hand. If you're still deciding whether Shopify is the right home, our comparison of Shopify, Wix and Squarespace for NZ businesses covers the trade-offs. And it's worth knowing your monthly Shopify costs before you commit.

Next step

If you'd like to do the migration yourself, the steps above are the whole job, and a well-kept spreadsheet is most of it. If you'd rather hand it over, we move sites and stores to Shopify for businesses across NZ from our base in Wānaka. Store migrations aren't a fixed package because every site is different, so we quote them with a free, fixed-price proposal. Tell us about your current site on price your project and we'll come back with a scope and a number.