SHOPIFY MIGRATION

Shopify 404 errors after migration: how to fix them

Short answer: after a move to Shopify, your old addresses no longer exist, so anyone who clicks an old link or a Google result lands on a 404. The fix is a redirect for every old address that mattered, pointing to the closest new page. Shopify has a built in URL redirect tool with a CSV import, so a normal store can do the basics without an app.

Why it happens

Every platform builds addresses its own way. Your old store may have used addresses like /product/blue-shirt or /shop/category/shirts, and Shopify uses /products/blue-shirt and /collections/shirts. Pages and blog posts have their own patterns too. Unless you set up redirects, the old addresses stop working. Search engines keep them in the index for a while, and other sites keep linking to them, so visitors and ranking value both go to a dead end.

Step 1: Get the list of broken addresses

You want the old addresses people actually use. Good sources:

• Google Search Console: it reports addresses Google knows about that return not found. Export that list. (Report names change, so look for the page indexing or not found section.)
• Your old site: a crawl of the old store before it was switched off, or the old sitemap.
• Analytics: the pages that got traffic in the last year.
• Backlinks: any pages that other sites link to.

If the old site is already gone, Search Console and analytics are usually the quickest. Start with the pages that had traffic or links. A page nobody visited in two years can be left.

Step 2: Map each old address to a new one

Make a two column sheet. Left is the old path, right is the new one. Send each old product to the matching new product, each old category to its new collection, and each old blog post to the same post. If there is no equal, send it to the closest collection or page. Avoid sending everything to the home page. That is general SEO practice, not a Shopify rule: a close match is more useful to a visitor than a dump on the home page.

Step 3: Import them into Shopify

Shopify's help page for URL redirects gives these steps: in the admin go to Content, then Menus, then URL redirects. Select Import, choose Add file, upload your CSV, review it, then select Import redirects. The Import dialog lets you download a sample CSV, so start from that so your columns match what Shopify expects. The file has two columns: the old address and the new one.

Rules from the same Shopify page:

• You can only redirect from a broken URL, meaning an address with no active page. If an old address happens to match a live page, it will not redirect.
• For a target on your own primary domain, use the path only, for example /products/blue-shirt. A full URL is for targets outside your domain.
• Some paths cannot be redirected because Shopify uses them itself, for example paths that start with /apps, /cart, /orders or /shop, and a few fixed ones. If an old address begins with one of these, the redirect will not take, so map it another way and check Shopify's page for the full list.
• Addresses with a query string (the part after a question mark) might not behave as you expect. Test those separately.
• Shopify allows up to 100,000 redirects. For a large number, the page suggests a third party app to manage them.
• If your store uses markets with subfolders, check the market note on Shopify's page before importing, since redirects and market paths interact.
• Redirects are cached by browsers. If you change one and the old behaviour sticks around on your machine, that may be why. Test in a private window.

Step 4: Test a sample

Open ten old addresses in a private window and check they land where you meant. Include a product, a collection, a blog post, and one with a query string. Add a few with and without a trailing slash, since those are the sort of variation that gets missed. This is a test habit, not a documented Shopify rule.

Step 5: Watch Search Console

Over the next weeks the not found list should shrink. New 404s that keep showing up usually point to a pattern you missed, like a category structure or a file path. Add those and import again. Avoid chains where A goes to B and B goes to C: point each old address straight at the final page. Shopify's page does not state a chain rule that we read, so treat this as general practice.

Other things worth checking after a move

• Internal links: links inside your products, blog posts and menus may still point at old addresses. Redirects catch them, but fixing them is cleaner.
• Images and files: old image addresses often break. Check your top pages for missing pictures.
• The sitemap: submit your sitemap in Search Console after the move.
• Domain: if you changed domains as well, the domain level redirect is a separate setup with your old host.

When to hire help

If you have thousands of products, a lot of blog posts, a messy old structure, or you already lost traffic after the move and need to find out why, the mapping is the slow part and mistakes cost rankings. Tidewell can crawl the old and new sites, build the redirect map, import it and check the result. We show you the map before importing and agree the price first. Send us the old address, the new one, and what you see now: tell us what is happening. We never ask for your password.

Questions

Will redirects bring my rankings back?

They help search engines connect the old pages to the new ones. Rankings can still dip for a while after any move, and nobody can promise how long or how far.

How many redirects can I import?

Shopify's page says up to 100,000. Check it before a very large import in case the number has changed.

Do I need an app?

For a few hundred redirects, no: the built in import does it. For tens of thousands, Shopify itself points to third party apps for managing them.