A site move is the moment most brands lose traffic they spent years earning. It doesn’t have to happen. Google is good at following a move when you tell it clearly where every page went.
We did this ourselves in November 2026, moving our old Onil site to falserules.com, and we do it for clients moving to Shopify. This is the plan we follow.
What actually causes the drop
Traffic falls after a migration for a few boring reasons, almost always the same ones:
- Old URLs return 404. Every link, bookmark and ranking pointed at the old address. If it’s gone, so is the value.
- Everything redirects to the home page. It looks tidy, but Google can treat it as a soft 404. The page’s rankings don’t move across.
- Temporary redirects. A 302 tells Google the move may not last. Use 301 (permanent) for a migration.
- Content went missing. If the new product page drops the text, reviews or FAQs that ranked, the redirect works but the page no longer deserves the spot.
- The new site blocks crawlers. A leftover password page, a
noindextag from staging, or a robots.txt that blocks everything.
Step 1: list every old URL
Before you build anything, get the full list of URLs the old site has. Use several sources, because each one misses some:
- The old sitemap (
/sitemap.xml). - Search Console: Pages report and the Performance report (pages with clicks).
- Your analytics: landing pages from the last 12 months.
- A crawl of the old site with a crawler tool.
- Backlinks: the pages other sites link to.
Put them in a spreadsheet, one row per URL, with clicks from the last 12 months. That number tells you which redirects matter most.
Step 2: map each old URL to its new home
Add a second column: the new URL. One old page, one closest match.
Shopify builds every URL from a fixed prefix plus a handle you can edit, so most maps follow a pattern:
| Old page | New Shopify URL |
|---|---|
| Product | /products/<handle> |
| Category | /collections/<handle> |
| About, contact, FAQ | /pages/<handle> |
| Blog post | /blogs/<blog>/<post> |
Keep the same handle (the last part of the URL) wherever you can. It makes the map simpler and the redirects easier to check.
When a page has no real match, pick the nearest parent: a discontinued product goes to its collection, an old blog post goes to the blog or guide that covers the topic now. That is what we did with the old Onil blog: Spanish posts point to our Spanish guides, English posts to the English guides.
Step 3: set the redirects
On Shopify: go to Content › Menus › URL redirects (older admins show it under Online Store › Navigation › View URL redirects). Add redirects one by one, or import the whole map from a CSV file with two columns: Redirect from and Redirect to. When you change a URL handle, look for the Create a URL redirect option under it and leave it ticked. Stores can have up to 100,000 redirects (Shopify Plus far more), which covers almost any site.
Two Shopify details trip people up:
- A redirect only works when nothing live sits at the old URL. If an old page still exists, Shopify shows it and ignores the redirect.
- Shopify redirects are for paths on the same store. A move from another domain needs the old domain pointed at the new site or at a host that can redirect it.
On a domain move: keep the old domain, point it at a host that answers every old URL with a 301 to the new one. We host the old Onil domain on the same Netlify site as falserules.com, with redirect rules per host. Never let the old domain expire: someone else can buy it and the links go with it.
Step 4: tell Google
- Submit the new sitemap. Shopify builds one at
/sitemap.xmlautomatically. Add it in Search Console for the new site. - Use Change of Address if the domain changed. In Search Console, open the old property, go to Settings › Change of address, and pick the new property. Both must be verified, and the old home page must 301 to the new one. Google then moves the signals faster.
- Keep the old property in Search Console. It shows which old URLs Google still visits and whether they redirect.
Step 5: check the first 30 days
The launch day is not the finish line. For the next month:
- Test the top 50 old URLs (by clicks) by hand or with a crawler. Each one should return one 301 and land on a page that returns 200. Fix chains (A to B to C) so A goes straight to C.
- Watch the 404 list in Search Console and in your Shopify analytics. Add redirects for anything real.
- Compare clicks per page with the old site. A page that dropped and stayed down usually lost content, not just its URL.
- Check that tracking (GA4, Meta pixel, Klaviyo) fires on the new site. A traffic “drop” is sometimes just broken tracking.
A launch-day checklist
- Redirect map complete, top pages checked by a person
- All redirects are 301, none chained
- No password page, no
noindex, robots.txt allows crawling - New sitemap submitted
- Change of Address sent (domain moves only)
- Old domain renewed for years, not months
- Old links in email flows, ads and social bios updated
- Tracking checked on the new site
Done right, most sites see a short wobble and then settle where they were, often higher, because the new site is faster.
Questions
Will I lose my Google rankings if I move to Shopify?
You can keep most of them if every old URL sends a permanent (301) redirect to the matching new page, and the new pages cover the same content. Expect some movement for a few weeks while Google recrawls. Big drops usually come from missing redirects or redirecting everything to the home page.
How long should I keep the redirects?
Google says to keep them as long as possible, and generally for at least one year. In practice, keep them for good: they cost nothing, and old links in emails, social posts and other sites keep working.
Should I redirect every old page to the home page?
No. Google can treat a redirect to an unrelated page, like the home page, as a soft 404, so the old page's signals are lost. Redirect each URL to its closest match. Only send a URL to the home page or a hub when no real match exists.
When do I use Google's Change of Address tool?
Only when the domain changes, for example from oldbrand.com to newbrand.com. If you stay on the same domain and only change platform (WordPress to Shopify on the same address), you don't need it: the redirects and a new sitemap do the job.
Why does my Shopify redirect not work?
Shopify only follows a redirect when nothing live exists at the old address. If a product, page or collection still uses that URL, Shopify shows the page and ignores the redirect. Delete or rename the old item, then test again.