Migrating your e-commerce store from one platform to another is a bit like moving house whilst running a business. You need everything to keep working smoothly for your customers, but you also can’t afford to lose the years of hard work you’ve put into building your search engine rankings. One wrong move during a Sellerdeck to Shopify migration, and you could watch your organic traffic disappear faster than biscuits at a office meeting.
The reality is that SEO migration is where many businesses stumble. They focus on the visual design and functionality of their new Shopify store but overlook the critical technical elements that keep them visible in search results. The consequence? A beautiful new website that nobody can find, and months of lost revenue whilst trying to rebuild their search presence from scratch.
However, when done properly, migrating from Sellerdeck to Shopify can actually improve your SEO performance. Shopify’s modern infrastructure, mobile-first design, and built-in SEO features often result in better search rankings than the old platform could achieve. The key is protecting your existing SEO value whilst unlocking these new opportunities.
This guide will walk you through every step needed to preserve your hard-earned search engine rankings during migration. From pre-migration planning to post-launch monitoring, we’ll cover the technical details that make the difference between a successful transition and an SEO disaster.
Section 1: Pre-Migration Audit
Before you change a single line of code or move any content, you need a complete picture of your current SEO landscape. This audit phase is like taking inventory before a house move—you need to know exactly what you have before you can plan how to move it safely.
URL Mapping: Creating Your Migration Blueprint
Your URL structure is the foundation of your SEO value. Every page on your Sellerdeck store has earned its place in search results over time, and you need to ensure each one has a proper destination on your new Shopify store.
Start by exporting a complete list of all your current URLs. This includes product pages, category pages, blog posts, information pages, and any custom landing pages you’ve created. Tools like Screaming Frog can crawl your entire site and provide a comprehensive URL inventory in minutes.
Next, plan your new Shopify URL structure. Shopify has its own conventions—product URLs typically follow the pattern /products/product-handle, whilst collections use /collections/collection-handle. Your blog posts will live under /blogs/blog-name/post-handle. Understanding these patterns helps you create a mapping document that matches every old URL with its new destination.
The mapping document becomes your migration bible. It should include the old URL, new URL, redirect type (usually 301), and priority level based on traffic and importance. High-traffic pages and those ranking well for important keywords get top priority for careful handling.
Content Inventory: Cataloguing Your SEO Assets
Not all content is created equal from an SEO perspective. Your audit should identify which pages are your biggest SEO performers and which might be holding you back.
Use Google Analytics to identify your highest-traffic organic pages from the past 12 months. These are your SEO champions—pages that consistently attract visitors from search engines. They deserve extra attention during migration to ensure they maintain or improve their performance.
Google Search Console provides another crucial perspective, showing which pages rank for your most valuable keywords. A page might not drive massive traffic but could rank on page one for a high-intent commercial keyword. These pages often convert better than high-traffic informational pages.
Don’t forget to audit your content quality during this process. Migration is the perfect opportunity to improve thin content, update outdated information, and consolidate similar pages that might be competing with each other in search results.
Identifying High-Traffic Pages for Priority Treatment
Your migration timeline and resources are limited, so focus your efforts where they’ll have the biggest impact. Create a priority matrix based on organic traffic, keyword rankings, and business value.
Tier 1 pages include your homepage, best-selling product pages, main category pages, and any content that ranks in the top 3 for important keywords. These pages need perfect redirects, optimised content transfer, and immediate post-launch monitoring.
Tier 2 pages might include secondary product pages, informational content, and pages ranking in positions 4-10 for valuable keywords. These still need careful attention but can be handled after the critical pages are sorted.
Tier 3 pages include low-traffic pages, discontinued products, and content that’s not performing well. Consider whether these pages should be migrated at all, or if this is an opportunity to clean up your site structure by letting them go.
Section 2: Redirect Strategy
Redirects are your SEO safety net during migration. They tell search engines (and users) where to find your content on the new platform, preserving the authority and rankings you’ve built over time.
Understanding 301 Redirects
A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect that passes approximately 90-95% of the original page’s SEO value to the new destination. It’s the gold standard for migration redirects and should be used for almost every page that’s moving to a new URL.
When a search engine encounters a 301 redirect, it understands that the content has permanently moved and updates its index accordingly. Over time, the new URL replaces the old one in search results, maintaining your rankings and organic traffic.
The key word is “permanent.” Only use 301 redirects for pages that are genuinely moving forever. If there’s any chance you might want to use the old URL again, you’ll need a different approach.
Implementing Redirects in Shopify
Shopify handles redirects through its admin panel, making them relatively straightforward to implement. Navigate to Online Store > Navigation > URL Redirects to add individual redirects or import them in bulk using a CSV file.
For large migrations, bulk import is essential. Prepare a CSV file with two columns: “Redirect from” (your old URLs) and “Redirect to” (your new Shopify URLs). Shopify accepts up to 50,000 redirects, which should cover even the largest stores.
However, Shopify’s redirect system has limitations. It can’t handle complex redirect patterns or conditional logic. If your Sellerdeck store uses dynamic URLs or complex parameter structures, you might need additional solutions like redirect apps or server-level redirects.
Preserving Link Equity Through Strategic Redirects
Link equity (also called link juice) is the SEO value that passes from one page to another through links. When external websites link to your pages, they pass authority that helps your rankings. Redirects preserve most of this authority during migration.
The most effective redirect strategy maintains relevance between old and new pages. Don’t redirect your entire old site to your new homepage—this wastes the specific authority each page has earned. Instead, redirect each page to the most relevant new page, even if the URL structure changes completely.
For discontinued products, redirect to the most similar active product or relevant category page. For blog posts, maintain the same content on your new blog. For category pages, ensure the new category contains similar products and serves the same user intent.
Consider redirect chains carefully. If Page A redirects to Page B, which redirects to Page C, some SEO value gets lost in the process. Plan your redirect structure to minimise chains and preserve maximum authority.
Section 3: Metadata & Structured Data Migration
Your page titles, descriptions, and structured data are crucial SEO elements that need careful migration. These elements directly influence how your pages appear in search results and how well they rank.
Transferring Titles and Meta Descriptions
Every page on your Sellerdeck store likely has custom title tags and meta descriptions optimised for specific keywords and user intent. These need to transfer to your Shopify store exactly as they were, or preferably improved during the migration process.
Export your existing metadata using SEO tools like Screaming Frog or directly from your Sellerdeck database if you have access. Create a spreadsheet mapping each page’s current title and description to its new Shopify equivalent.
Shopify makes metadata management straightforward. For products, you can edit SEO settings directly in the product editor. For collections, pages, and blog posts, similar SEO sections allow custom titles and descriptions. Use Shopify’s bulk editor or CSV import functionality to update metadata efficiently across hundreds of pages.
Take this opportunity to improve your metadata where possible. Update titles to include current year information, refresh descriptions to highlight new benefits or offers, and ensure all metadata follows current best practices for length and keyword inclusion.
Alt Text Migration for Images
Image alt text serves dual purposes: accessibility for screen readers and SEO context for search engines. Your product images, blog post illustrations, and other visual content need descriptive alt text that transfers to the new platform.
Shopify’s image handling is generally superior to Sellerdeck, but you need to ensure alt text doesn’t get lost during the transfer. When uploading images to Shopify, the alt text field might be empty even if your original images had proper descriptions.
Create a systematic approach to alt text migration. For product images, use descriptive phrases that include relevant keywords naturally: “women’s blue denim jacket with pearl buttons” rather than just “jacket.” For blog images, describe what the image shows and how it relates to the content.
Consider this an opportunity to improve your image SEO. Many Sellerdeck stores have poor or missing alt text. Use AI tools or manual writing to create compelling, descriptive alt text that serves both users and search engines effectively.
Schema Markup and Structured Data
Structured data helps search engines understand your content and can enable rich snippets in search results. If your Sellerdeck store uses schema markup, you need to ensure it transfers correctly and takes advantage of Shopify’s enhanced capabilities.
Shopify automatically generates some structured data, particularly for products (pricing, availability, reviews) and organisation information. However, you might have additional schema markup for things like FAQ sections, how-to guides, or local business information that needs manual migration.
Audit your current structured data using Google’s Rich Results Test. Identify which schema types you’re currently using and their impact on search visibility. Some might be automatically handled by Shopify, whilst others require manual implementation through theme customisation or apps.
Consider expanding your structured data during migration. Shopify’s ecosystem includes apps that can add schema for reviews, breadcrumbs, articles, and other content types that might improve your search appearance and click-through rates.
Section 4: Post-Migration Checks
The work doesn’t end when your new Shopify store goes live. Post-migration monitoring is crucial to catch issues quickly and ensure your SEO transition is successful.
Testing Redirect Implementation
Once your new store is live, test every important redirect to ensure they’re working correctly. Automated tools can check hundreds of redirects in minutes, but manual spot-checks of your most important pages provide additional confidence.
Use tools like Redirect Path (a Chrome extension) or online redirect checkers to verify that redirects return proper 301 status codes and point to the intended destinations. Check both desktop and mobile versions, as some redirect issues only appear on specific devices.
Pay particular attention to redirect chains and loops. A redirect chain occurs when Page A redirects to Page B, which redirects to Page C. Whilst not always problematic, chains can slow down page loading and waste some SEO value. Redirect loops (where pages redirect to each other in a circle) are more serious and can prevent pages from loading entirely.
Ensuring Crawlability and Indexation
Search engines need to discover and index your new Shopify pages to maintain your rankings. Several technical factors can prevent proper crawling and indexation, even if everything else is configured correctly.
Submit your new XML sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools immediately after launch. Shopify automatically generates sitemaps, but you should verify they include all important pages and exclude any pages you don’t want indexed.
Check your robots.txt file to ensure it’s not blocking important content. Shopify’s default robots.txt is generally appropriate, but customisations during migration might accidentally block sections of your site.
Use Google Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to test whether important pages can be crawled and indexed. This tool shows exactly how Google sees each page and identifies any issues preventing proper indexation.
Search Console Monitoring and Performance Tracking
Google Search Console becomes your mission control for monitoring migration success. Set up the new property immediately and begin tracking key metrics to identify issues before they become major problems.
Monitor the Coverage report for crawl errors, which might indicate broken redirects or technical problems with new pages. The Performance report shows how your search visibility changes over time, helping you identify pages that might need additional attention.
Set up alerts for significant changes in impressions, clicks, or average position. Small fluctuations are normal during migration, but sudden drops might indicate problems requiring immediate attention.
Compare performance data between your old and new properties to ensure traffic is successfully transferring. You should see declining metrics on the old site (as redirects take effect) and corresponding increases on the new Shopify store.
Conclusion: Ensuring SEO Continuity and Enhanced Visibility
A successful migration from Sellerdeck to Shopify requires meticulous planning, careful execution, and ongoing monitoring. The reward is a modern, mobile-optimised platform that not only preserves your existing SEO value but provides opportunities for improved search performance.
The technical aspects we’ve covered—proper redirects, metadata migration, and post-launch monitoring—are non-negotiable for maintaining your search rankings. Skip any of these steps, and you risk losing years of SEO progress. However, when executed properly, migration often results in improved rankings as you benefit from Shopify’s superior technical foundation.
Remember that migration effects can take several months to fully materialise. Search engines need time to process redirects, recrawl content, and update their rankings. Patience is essential, but so is vigilance in monitoring performance and addressing issues quickly.
The investment in doing migration properly pays dividends for years to come. Your new Shopify store will be faster, more mobile-friendly, and better equipped to compete in modern search results. The improved user experience typically leads to better engagement metrics, which reinforce your SEO improvements over time.
Most importantly, a well-executed migration sets the foundation for future growth. Instead of being held back by an outdated platform, you’ll have access to cutting-edge SEO tools, apps, and features that keep you competitive as search algorithms continue evolving.
When the technical complexity of SEO-safe migration feels overwhelming, that’s where expert help becomes invaluable. Media Mole specialises in seamless Sellerdeck to Shopify migrations that preserve and enhance SEO performance. Our systematic approach handles every technical detail, from comprehensive redirect strategies to advanced structured data implementation. We don’t just move your store—we optimise it for long-term search success. For migrations that protect your SEO investment whilst unlocking Shopify’s full potential, Media Mole is your first choice for expert theme development and SEO excellence.