Shopify Migration Is A Redirect Project

What Comes First In A Shopify Replatform?

Build the URL map before the design, and validate every target before you load a single redirect.

Shopify allows a maximum of 100,000 redirects on a standard store and 20,000,000 on Plus. In my experience the ceiling is rarely what stops a migration.

What bites is which URLs you are allowed to redirect from, and the fact that a wrong target is cached rather than cleanly reversible.

What Shopify Will Not Let You Redirect

Two categories, both from Shopify's own documentation.

Reserved paths. You cannot redirect from URLs beginning with /apps, /application, /cart, /carts, /orders, /services or /shop.

Fixed Shopify paths. You also cannot redirect from /products, /collections or /collections/all.

That second group is the one that catches people mid project. If the old site organised categories in a way that collides with those paths, and somebody planned a tidy mapping onto them, that specific redirect is not available.

There are three more caveats in the same documentation worth carrying into a plan:

1. Redirects do not automatically apply to all market subfolders. Individual redirects are needed per locale.
2. Redirects with query strings may not function as expected.
3. Collection URLs filtered by tag cannot be redirected.

If your old site's category navigation was built on query strings, that third and second point together are a significant piece of scope, not a footnote.

The Precondition On Every Redirect

Shopify's documentation states that you can redirect only from broken URLs, the ones showing a 404 or a page not found.

Read carefully, that is a statement about Shopify, not about your old site. A path that does not exist on the new store already returns a 404 there, so a redirect from it can be created before the domain is pointed anywhere. Separately, and stated separately in the same documentation, /products, /collections and /collections/all cannot be redirected from at all.

That distinction is worth getting right, because it decides how much of the work can happen calmly in advance. Most of it can.

The thing that genuinely does not get a second attempt is a wrong target. Shopify notes that 301 redirects are cached by browsers and search engines and may persist after being removed. A redirect pointed at the wrong page is not simply undone by deleting it.

My own approach follows from that. Validate every target against the new store before loading anything, rather than loading the map and correcting it live.

What Moves, And In What Order

Shopify names a Store Migration app, and its migration guidance covers moves from Amazon, Clover, Etsy, eBay, GoDaddy, Lightspeed, Square, Squarespace, Wix and WooCommerce.

The data types it covers, via CSV import or migration apps, are products, customers, historical orders that are already fulfilled, gift cards and store credits, blogs, and pages such as shipping policy, contact and about.

The order matters, and Shopify says so directly: import your products first, then your customers, and then any historical orders, so that products and customers can be properly connected to the orders.

There is an operational detail in the same guidance that is easy to trip over. When you import historical orders, staff receive a new order email for each one, unless notifications are deactivated first. On a catalogue with any history, that is a lot of email and it looks alarming to anyone not expecting it.

Shopify also notes plainly that some data cannot be migrated by CSV. That is worth establishing early rather than discovering at cutover, because it determines whether you need the API, a partner, or a decision to leave something behind.

Four Routes The Data Can Take

Shopify's migration guidance sets out more than one way in. In my experience picking the wrong one early is a common source of wasted effort.

CSV import. The workhorse for products, customers, already fulfilled historical orders, gift cards and store credits, blogs, and pages such as shipping policy, contact and about. Shopify notes plainly that some data cannot be migrated by CSV, without listing what, so treat that as something to establish against your own data rather than assume.

Migration apps. Shopify names a Store Migration app, installed from the Shopify App Store, as the first step in its own import guide. Separately, it publishes platform specific migration guides for Amazon, Clover, Etsy, eBay, GoDaddy, Lightspeed, Square, Squarespace, Wix and WooCommerce. If you are coming from one of those, read the guide for your platform before writing anything.

Manual copy and paste. Shopify lists this for individual pages, which sounds unserious until you have four pages of legal copy and no appetite for a script.

The API, or a partner. Shopify's guidance also names custom solutions using the Shopify API, and hiring a Shopify Partner for a managed migration. My own reading is that these are where you end up when the first three do not cover your data.

The decision I would make early is which of your data falls outside the first two, because in my experience that is where the cost sits.

The Cutover

Sequencing is most of the value here, and most of it follows from the constraints above.

Get the data in first, in Shopify's stated order, with order notifications off. Confirm the new URLs are what you expect, because they are what the redirect map has to point at. Load and check the redirects while there is still time to correct a target cheaply. Switch DNS last.

Two things I check before anyone touches DNS. First, that every URL earning traffic on the old site has a target on the new one, and that the target is a real page rather than a plausible guess. Second, that nothing in the map tries to redirect from a path Shopify serves.

If a migration is coming up, you can Request The Free Shopify Store Audit.

Example: A WooCommerce Catalogue With Filtered URLs

This is a constructed example, not a client engagement. It is assembled from the documented behaviour above to show where the constraints meet each other.

A merchant moves a catalogue from WooCommerce. Categories on the old site sit under a path that maps naturally onto Shopify collections. Products carry a different slug pattern. There is a decade of blog content and a few hundred pages of guides.

The design work is scoped and quoted. The URL work is assumed.

Three problems surface, all of them predictable from the documentation.

The old category pages used query strings for filtering, and a good deal of the organic traffic lands on those filtered URLs. Shopify's guidance says redirects with query strings may not function as expected, and that collection URLs filtered by tag cannot be redirected. So those URLs need a decision rather than a mapping, and the decision is a commercial one about which filtered pages were earning anything.

The blog is fine, but the pages are not all fine, because a handful of the old URLs collide with reserved paths.

And a handful of the intended targets turn out not to exist yet on the new store, which is only discoverable by checking each one.

None of that makes the migration harder to do. In my experience it makes it harder to schedule, which is a different problem and one that shows up as a missed weekend rather than a technical failure.

The useful reframe is to do the URL inventory first, before the design is signed off, so the exceptions are known while there is still time to decide about them.

Signs Your Replatform Will Lose Search Traffic

Five signals. Any two and the URL work deserves its own line in the budget.

1. Your current category pages use query strings, and those URLs earn traffic.
2. Nobody has produced a list of every URL on the old site with its traffic attached.
3. The migration quote itemises design and data, and treats redirects as a task rather than a workstream.
4. You sell into more than one market or locale.
5. Your old URL structure collides with /products, /collections, /cart or /orders.

Signal two is the one to fix first, because everything else is a judgement you cannot make without it.

Common Questions About Shopify Migration

Can You Redirect Any URL On Shopify?

No. Shopify's documentation states you cannot redirect from URLs beginning with /apps, /application, /cart, /carts, /orders, /services or /shop, nor from the fixed paths /products, /collections or /collections/all. Collection URLs filtered by tag also cannot be redirected. Redirects with query strings may also not function as expected.

How Many Redirects Does Shopify Allow?

A standard store allows a maximum of 100,000 URL redirects. Stores on the Plus plan allow a maximum of 20,000,000. For most migrations the ceiling is not the constraint; which URLs are eligible and when they can be created matters far more.

When Can Redirects Be Created During A Migration?

Shopify states that you can redirect only from broken URLs, meaning ones already displaying a 404 or page not found. A path that does not exist on the new store already qualifies, so most of the map can be built and checked before the domain is switched.

What Order Should Data Be Imported In?

Shopify's migration guidance is explicit: import your products first, then your customers, and then any historical orders. Deactivate staff order notifications before importing historical orders, or a new order email is sent for every one. Shopify also notes some data cannot be migrated by CSV.

Which Platforms Can Shopify Migrate From?

Shopify's migration guidance covers Amazon, Clover, Etsy, eBay, GoDaddy, Lightspeed, Square, Squarespace, Wix and WooCommerce, and names a Store Migration app. Products, customers, already fulfilled historical orders, gift cards, blogs and pages are covered by CSV import or migration apps.

Part of The Shopify Development Guide. See also What Already Broke In Checkout, What Is Actually Worth Optimising On A Shopify Store, What Belongs In A Shopify Function and Themes And Online Store 2.0.