Short answer: you keep your rankings by making sure every old URL redirects to its matching new page, and by carrying over your titles, descriptions and content. Most ranking drops after a migration come from missing redirects, not from Shopify itself.
Here is the checklist we follow on every migration.
Before you move
1. Export a list of every URL on the old site
Products, categories, pages and blog posts. Use your sitemap or a crawler. This list is the most important file in the whole project.
2. Find the pages that bring your traffic
In Google Search Console, open the Pages report and note which URLs get clicks. These are the ones that must not break.
3. Save your SEO titles and meta descriptions
Export them with your products and pages. If they rank today, keep them as they are.
During the move
4. Move the content, not only the products
Category descriptions, blog posts and image alt text all help rankings. They are easy to forget because they are not in a product export.
5. Accept that URLs will change
Shopify uses fixed URL patterns: /products/, /collections/, /pages/ and /blogs/. Your old paths will almost certainly be different, which is why the next step matters so much.
6. Create a 301 redirect for every old URL
Map each old address to the closest matching new page, one to one. In Shopify this is under Online Store, Navigation, URL redirects, and you can import them in bulk with a CSV file. Do not send everything to the homepage. Google treats that as the page being gone.
Launch day
7. Test the redirects before you switch the domain
Check your top pages by hand. Each old URL should land on the right new page in a single step.
8. Submit the new sitemap
Shopify creates it automatically at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Submit it in Google Search Console as soon as the domain points to Shopify.
After launch
9. Watch for 404 errors for a few weeks
Search Console will show any pages Google could not find. Add a redirect for each one. Some movement in rankings during the first weeks is normal while Google re-reads the site.
Common mistakes
- Redirecting every old URL to the homepage.
- Rewriting all titles and descriptions at the same time as the move.
- Deleting the old blog because it was not part of the product export.
- Closing the old platform before checking that redirects work.
If you would rather not do this yourself, our Shopify migration service covers products, customers, content and the full redirect map. Tell us where your store is today and we will reply within one business day.