Redirects (301)
A redirect permanently forwards an old URL to a new one. 301 redirects carry rankings and link equity across and are indispensable in store migrations.
If a page's URL changes without a redirect in place, visitors and search engines hit a dead end: 404 errors, lost rankings, broken links from ads and newsletters. A 301 redirect tells Google the content has moved permanently and transfers most of the accumulated SEO authority to the new URL.
In a store migration, redirect mapping is one of the most important SEO tasks: every indexed old URL (products, categories, content pages) needs a target in the new store. Since Shopify has fixed URL structures (/products/, /collections/, /pages/), practically all URLs change when moving from Shopware, Magento or WooCommerce.
In Shopify, redirects are managed under 'URL redirects' and can be imported via CSV. Important: point redirects to the closest matching content, not wholesale to the homepage — and monitor crawl errors in Google Search Console after go-live.
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