Relaunch your online store without avoidable SEO losses: what to check before changing platforms
Check URLs, content, redirects and indexing when relaunching an online store. A practical checklist to help protect search visibility.
Quick answer
Record important pages and content before rebuilding, map changed URLs to appropriate replacement pages and test the new store before launch. Afterwards, monitor availability, indexing and search performance. Unchanged rankings cannot be guaranteed.
These tasks belong in the plan whether you are moving to PrestaShop, Shopware or Shopify.
What is the difference between a relaunch and a migration?
A relaunch renews a store, for example its design, structure or features. A migration transfers data and, where relevant, functionality to a different technical environment. Both can be part of the same project.
For SEO planning, the key question is whether URLs, content, navigation or technical settings will change.
Which pages should you record before the relaunch?
We recommend prioritising product, category and information pages using several criteria: organic entry visits, orders, external links and their importance to your product range.
This means looking beyond the most visited pages. A buying guide with relatively few visits can still matter to customers considering a particular product group.
How should you redirect old URLs?
When addresses change, old URLs should lead to their appropriate new destinations. Google recommends permanent server-side redirects and warns against sending many pages to an unrelated homepage. Redirects should generally remain in place for at least a year. Source: Google – site moves with URL changes.
Example: An old category for safety footwear should lead to the corresponding new category. For a discontinued product, first check whether a suitable replacement page actually exists.
Which content should you retain?
Useful product information, category descriptions, buying guides and frequently asked customer questions should be explicitly included in the transfer scope. We recommend keeping important content rather than removing it simply because the design is changing.
Check each page type: main category, subcategory, individual product, product with variants and guide. This helps establish whether information remains complete and accessible to visitors.
How do you prevent a test store from becoming public unintentionally?
A robots.txt file does not provide access protection and cannot reliably prevent a URL from appearing in search results. Password protection is one option for private test environments. Source: Google – introduction to robots.txt.
At launch, check the reverse: pages intended to be public must be accessible and free of accidental indexing restrictions.
What should you check after launch?
| Area | Practical check |
|---|---|
| Existing entry pages | Do previous URLs lead to their intended destinations? |
| Content and navigation | Are text, images and internal links complete? |
| Ordering process | Do search, basket, payment and order confirmation work? |
| Measurement | Are visits and orders still recorded correctly? |
| Search engines | Are errors, indexing and search performance being monitored? |
Google notes that temporary fluctuations can occur during a site move. Support should therefore continue beyond the technical launch. Source: Google – monitoring a site move.
How sjmedia combines technical checks with client acceptance testing
For relaunches and migrations, we use a project-specific task list in our Zoho system. It records checks during implementation and afterwards. The storefront is a priority: do orders work, do shipping rules such as free delivery apply correctly, and does the store display as intended?
We also test the administration area. The retailer adds an operational perspective: staff work with products and orders every day and know their company’s particular processes. In some areas, clients can check those details more thoroughly than our technical review alone.
We therefore recommend planning technical tests and checks of day-to-day workflows together. Agree the test scope and responsibilities before acceptance. A limited budget makes that clarity especially important; involving the client does not replace our technical testing responsibilities.
Can a relaunch affect visibility in AI search results?
Yes, where the AI search service accesses the affected pages. To be eligible as a supporting link in Google AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible for a search snippet. Meeting those conditions does not guarantee inclusion. Source: Google – AI features and websites.
Sources & further reading
- Google: site moves with URL changes · accessed on
- Google: introduction to robots.txt · accessed on
- Google: AI features and websites · accessed on