SEO MIGRATION · BORIS KATSAROV

SEO migration of an online store, without losing traffic

Changing platform, domain or design is the riskiest operation in the life of a store. It happens once and either goes unnoticed or is paid for over the following months. See a real case study →

100%

REDIRECT MAP READY BEFORE LAUNCH

60 days

OF MONITORING AFTER THE MIGRATION

PLATFORMS: OPENCART, WOOCOMMERCE, SHOPIFY

WHY IT MATTERS

What a bad migration costs you

The site works, the design is nicer, but two weeks later sales are down. Here is where the difference goes.

The history of your URLs

Years of accumulated authority sit on specific URLs. Without redirects it does not move — it disappears.

The categories that sell

Usually 10–20 category pages carry the bulk of the revenue. Those are the first to drop when the structure changes.

Recovery speed

A missed mistake surfaces after a month and takes three to fix. The orders lost in between do not come back.

Trust inside the team

After a drop everyone blames everyone. With a plan and a checklist agreed up front there is simply nothing to argue about.

TYPES OF MIGRATION

When we call it a migration

It is not only a change of platform. Each of these five situations is treated as a migration and needs the same preparation.

Change of platform

OpenCart → WooCommerce, WooCommerce → Shopify or the other way round. The hardest case: URLs, templates, filters and the way content is generated all change at once.

New design or theme

The URLs stay, but everything inside them changes: headings, copy, internal links, speed. Content that was earning rankings often disappears.

New domain or rebrand

All the authority has to move to a new domain, external links included. Here every missed page shows up immediately.

Restructuring the catalogue

Merging or splitting categories, new filter logic, a different URL structure. It is a migration even if you stay on the same platform.

Consolidating sites

Two stores become one, or a subdomain moves into a folder. It needs a map of the overlapping content before the merge.

PHASE 1 · BEFORE THE MIGRATION

The preparation that decides the outcome

Two to four weeks before launch. If this is done, the launch itself is a matter of a few hours.

Audit of the current store

Full crawl of every URL and a snapshot of the current state
Export of rankings and per-page traffic from Google Search Console
A list of the pages that generate revenue, from GA4
A map of external links — exactly which URLs they point to
Current Core Web Vitals as a baseline
Archive of robots.txt, sitemap.xml and structured data

Audit of the staging version

Every template checked: home, category, product, filter, blog
Titles, meta descriptions and H1s — not empty and not duplicated
Canonicals, pagination and rules for filter pages
Product schema with price, availability and reviews
Speed of the new theme, while there is still time to fix it
Staging is closed to indexing — and stays that way

The redirect map

Old URL → new URL for every indexed page
301 only, no chains and no loops
No blanket redirects to the homepage
A decision for discontinued and out-of-stock products
Redirects for the old filter URLs
The whole list tested on staging before launch

Content and data

Category copy is carried over, not rewritten from scratch
Internal links point to the new URLs, not through a redirect
Images keep their filenames and alt text
GA4, Search Console and Merchant Center ready for the new site
The Google Shopping feed points to the new URLs
A full backup of the old site, kept after launch

PHASE 2 · LAUNCH DAY

What happens on the day

We launch on the store’s quietest day, never before a holiday and never during a campaign. I am on call for the first six hours.

The redirects go live

The whole list is deployed at once and checked row by row — 200 on the new URL, 301 on the old one.

robots.txt and sitemap.xml

The new site is open to indexing (the classic mistake is a forgotten noindex) and the new sitemap is submitted immediately.

Real-time monitoring

404s, server response time, orders and payments. If something is wrong we roll back — the backup is ready.

301 redirects
sitemap.xml
robots.txt
canonical
HTTPS and HSTS
Product schema
GA4 and Search Console
Merchant Center feed

PHASE 3 · AFTER THE MIGRATION

Sixty days of monitoring

The most expensive mistakes do not show on launch day but in the third week. That is why monitoring is part of the work, not an add-on.

Days 1–7

Days 8–30

Days 31–60

PLATFORMS

Where things break on each platform

Platform	Typical migration risk	How I handle it
OpenCart	Old URLs contain paths and index.php?route=; after an upgrade duplicates appear.	Rules at server level, not a plugin; every URL type tested before launch.
WooCommerce	Changing the theme wipes category copy and alters filter URLs.	Content exported before the change and filter rules rebuilt in the new theme.
Shopify	Fixed URL structure (/collections/, /products/) — old URLs cannot be kept.	A 1:1 map to the new URLs and control over duplicate product URLs.
Custom build	No built-in mechanism for redirects and sitemaps.	A written spec for the developers and sign-off after testing.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The questions before every migration

Will traffic drop?

A short dip is normal — Google has to work through every new URL. With a prepared redirect map it is brief and recovers; without one it can last for months.

When should you bring me in?

Before the design is finished, not a week before launch. The cheapest moment to fix the structure is while it is still being drawn.

Can we change the domain at the same time?

You can, but I do not recommend it. If domain, platform and design all change at once, nobody can tell what caused a problem.

How long should I keep the old site?

Keep the backup for at least three months; the redirects stay permanently. Old links keep sending traffic for years.

Do you work with our development agency?

Yes, that is the usual case. I hand over tasks in their format and sign off the work once it is done.

What if the migration is done and traffic has already dropped?

That is a common reason people call me. We start with a diagnosis of what exactly broke and what can be recovered. See also eCommerce SEO.

LET’S TALK

Migration coming up? Talk to me before launch.

Your name, store URL, email and a few sentences — what is changing and when the launch is planned. I reply personally within one business day.

+359 896 409 201