WooCommerce to Shopify redirect map

How the redirect map works

The tool looks for your sitemaps in your robots.txt first. If it lists none, it tries WordPress’s own sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml, the Yoast SEO and Rank Math index at /sitemap_index.xml, the SEOPress index at /sitemaps.xml, then /sitemap.xml. It sorts each URL by the sitemap it came from, so a custom product base such as /shop/ still maps. Only when a sitemap’s name does not say what it lists does it fall back to WooCommerce’s default URL patterns.

Each Shopify handle is the last part of the WooCommerce address, in lowercase:

The tool knows WooCommerce’s shop, cart, checkout and account pages by the English slugs WooCommerce gives them. If yours have other slugs, for example because WooCommerce was set up in another language, change those rows in the CSV.

Blog categories, author pages, other content types and addresses with a query string, such as /?p=123 from WordPress’s plain permalinks, go on a separate list for you to map by hand. The tool reads up to 50 sitemap files and 20,000 URLs in about 7 seconds, and says on the results when it reaches a limit. The sources for every rule, and the date we checked them, are listed under the tool.

What to check before you import it

1. Handles. The map assumes each product, collection, page and post keeps its WooCommerce slug as its Shopify handle. Shopify generates handles from titles in lowercase with hyphens, but its documentation does not say what it does with letters such as æ, ø or å. The tool flags those slugs, so check them in your Shopify admin after the import.
2. Permalink settings. If you changed the product, category or tag base in WordPress under Settings > Permalinks and your sitemaps come from a plugin the tool does not recognise, those URLs land on the list to map by hand. Check it.
3. Addresses that are not in your sitemaps. Sitemaps list what your store wants indexed. Products you deleted, filtered category pages and pages set to noindex are not there. Check Google Search Console or your analytics for other old addresses that still get visits or links.
4. Shopify’s rules. A Shopify store holds up to 100,000 URL redirects (20 million on Shopify Plus), and Shopify only redirects an address that is broken on the new store: a page that still loads is never redirected. Shopify also says addresses with a query string may not redirect as expected. All three are on Shopify’s URL redirects help page.
5. Trailing slashes. Merchants in the Shopify Community report that Shopify drops the trailing slash when it saves a redirect, so the CSV leaves it off. After import, test an old address with and without it.
6. Testing. Import the file in your Shopify admin under Content > Menus > URL redirects. Then open a sample of old addresses and check each lands on the right page, as Shopify advises in its guide to migrating from WooCommerce.

What a migration involves beyond redirects

Redirects keep the search traffic and links your old addresses have earned. They are one part of a move. A migration also covers your data, your theme, your integrations and a cutover that keeps your store open while it moves.

Our WooCommerce to Shopify migration covers all of that, redirects included. It costs from £8,000, ex VAT. That is the starting point: we scope your store, then agree a fixed price before work starts. For how we run a move from planning to go-live, and the brands we have moved, see our Shopify migration page.