Shopify keeps many things simple, which makes it easy to assume a theme change, store move or headless rebuild won’t affect search. It can, badly. Shopify migration SEO checks what a change will do to headings, metadata, structured data, URLs and sitemaps before it goes live, and tracks what happens after.
Shopify enforces its own URL patterns. Plan the redirects around that rather than discovering it at launch.
What Shopify migrations cover
Shopify migrations cover three kinds of change: moving to a new theme on the same store, moving from one Shopify store or domain to another, and moving to a headless build such as Shopify Hydrogen with a separate content management system. Moves onto Shopify from other platforms are covered too, with Magento to Shopify set out in its own page.
The three kinds of move
| Move | What changes | The main risks |
|---|---|---|
| Theme change | Templates, headings, schema, internal links and speed, while URLs stay the same | Lost H1s or duplicate H1s, missing product schema, collection content hidden, slower pages |
| Store or domain move | The domain and possibly product and collection handles | Missing redirects, changed handles, Search Console not set up for the new domain |
| Headless build | The whole front end, often with content in a separate CMS | No sitemap by default, metadata and canonicals needing to be built, content not in the initial HTML |
Headless Shopify needs extra care
On a standard Shopify theme, search basics such as the XML sitemap come built in. On a headless Hydrogen build they don’t, especially when content lives in a separate system like Sanity while products and collections live in Shopify. Anything that needs to know about every page has to be built to pull from both.
That’s what happened with Kwiat, a New York jeweller that moved to Hydrogen and Sanity. After the move, the sitemap returned an error. I wrote a specification for a sitemap index pointing to separate product, collection and content sitemaps, listing only live, indexable URLs with last-modified dates, and the development team built it to that spec.
Who it’s for
This suits Shopify stores that are:
- changing theme or redesigning within Shopify
- moving to a new store, domain or Shopify Plus set-up
- planning or already running a headless build
- seeing traffic changes after a recent theme or store change
What’s included
- Baseline. Search Console, analytics and a crawl of the current store.
- Change review. The new theme, store or headless build checked in a duplicate theme or staging environment against the current one.
- Redirects and handles. Where URLs or handles change, a full redirect map ready to import.
- Templates, metadata and schema. Headings, titles, descriptions, canonicals and product schema checked on every template.
- Sitemaps and rendering. For headless builds, a sitemap specification and checks that content appears in the page HTML.
- Launch and recovery tracking.
What you get
- A change review comparing the new theme or build with the current store
- A redirect map, where needed
- Template and metadata briefs, or a headless SEO specification
- A launch checklist and recovery tracking
Limitations
Some Shopify limits can’t be changed, such as the fixed /products/ and /collections/ paths on a standard store. Headless builds depend on the development team implementing the specification, which is why the staging site and the live site are both checked.
What this won’t solve
A migration protects what’s there. Improving thin collection pages or product content is covered by product and category page copy, and building custom sections is covered by Shopify development. For headless builds beyond the migration, see headless Shopify.
Talk to the person doing the work
There is no account manager here and no team to be handed to. If you get in touch, it is me who reads it, me who looks at your site, and me who does the work if we go ahead.
Get in touch, or start with a free assessment.
Engagement and price
There are no list prices here, and that is deliberate. What a piece of work costs depends on the state of the site, how much of it there is and what you actually need, none of which I know before looking at it.
So it starts with a free analysis. I look at your site, your Search Console and who you are really competing with, then come back with what I would do first and what it would cost to do. No obligation attached, and if the honest answer is that you do not need me yet, I will say so.
How the work gets done
Crawls run through the site audit system, sitemaps through the sitemap toolkit, and recovery tracking through the Search Console audit tool. Every recommendation is reviewed by me. This service is part of site migrations, and the site migration checklist and why sites lose traffic after a migration cover the wider subject.
FAQ
Does changing Shopify theme affect SEO?
It can. A new theme can change headings, titles, structured data, internal links, page speed and how content displays, even though Shopify’s URLs stay the same. Checking the new theme in a duplicate before publishing, and comparing it against the current one, avoids most problems.
Is headless Shopify good for SEO?
It can perform well, but it moves responsibility onto the build. On a headless site, the sitemap, metadata, canonicals and whether content appears in the page HTML all depend on how the site is developed, rather than coming built in. They need specifying before launch and checking after.
Can I move from one Shopify store to another without losing rankings?
Yes, if the old store’s URLs are redirected to the new store’s matching pages, product and collection handles are kept where possible, and the new domain is set up correctly in Search Console. Store moves go wrong when handles change or redirects are left until after launch.
Changing theme or going headless?
Get in touch before the change goes live, or start with a free assessment.