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Re-platforming is one of the most stressful projects a business can undertake. Moving from Magento, WooCommerce, or a legacy custom build to Shopify offers immense long-term benefits. But the migration process itself is a minefield.

The horror stories are real: A brand migrates on Friday, and by Monday, their organic traffic has dropped 60%. They lost their keyword rankings, their backlinks now hit 404 pages, and their revenue tanks.

This is not a Shopify problem. I is a migration execution problem.

At NORVA, we specialise in high-stakes migrations. We view them not as "copy-pasting" data, but as a complex data engineering challenge. This article explains how to migrate safely.

The SEO Graveyard: Why Ratings Drop

When you move to Shopify, your URL structure changes. Magento might structure a URL as domain.com/category/product-id. Shopify forces domain.com/products/product-slug.

If you simply launch the new site without telling Google where the old pages went, Google assumes those pages are dead. It wipes them from the index. You lose the "equity" (authority) you built up over years.

The 301 Redirect Map: Your Safety Net

The single most critical document in a migration is the 301 Redirect Map. This is a comprehensive spreadsheet matching every single Old URL to its quantitative New URL.

For a store with 5,000 products, this cannot be done manually. We use scripts to crawl the old site, export all URLs, and fuzz-match them to the new Shopify handles.

Rule #1: Never redirect to the homepage. If a product no longer exists, redirect to its parent category. If the category is gone, redirect to a closely related one. Redirecting everything to Home is a lazy signal to Google that calls "soft 404s."

Data Structure and Meta Fields

Data migration is more than just Product Titles and Prices.

• Meta Data: You must migrate your SEO Titles and Meta Descriptions exactly. Do not rewrite them during migration (change only one variable at a time).
• Reviews: Product reviews are trust signals and rich snippet gold. These must be exported from your old system (e.g., Yotpo, Trustpilot) and imported correctly into Shopify.
• Customer Data: Passwords cannot be migrated (they are encrypted). You must have a strategy for inviting customers to reactivate their accounts.

The "Content Freeze"

A common mistake is allowing the team to edit the old site while the migration is happening.

We enforce a strict Content Freeze. Once we take the final data snapshot, no new products or blog posts can be added to the old site. Any changes made during this limbo period will be lost.

Post-Launch: The Traffic Dip

Even with a perfect migration, expect a 5–10% fluctuation in traffic for 2–4 weeks. Google has to re-crawl your new sitemap and process the redirects.

However, if done correctly, traffic should rebound and then exceed previous levels. Why? Because Shopify is likely faster, more mobile-responsive, and better structured than your old legacy monolith.

The Checklist

If you are planning a migration, ensure your partner covers these non-negotiables:

• Full crawling of the legacy site (including "orphan" pages).
• 1-to-1 Redirect Mapping.
• Migration of all Blog posts and Images.
• Setup of Google Search Console (Change of Address tool if domain changes).
• 404 Monitoring immediately post-launch.