Preserve SEO in PrestaShop Migrations

The nightmare scenario for any merchant: You launch your beautiful new PrestaShop store, but your traffic drops to zero because Google can no longer find your products. This guide explains exactly how to prevent that disaster. By following our SEO preservation protocol, you can transfer your rankings, traffic, and domain authority along with your data.

Why is SEO at Risk During Migration?

Google indexes your store based on specific URLs (e.g., mystore.com/products/blue-shirt). When you move to PrestaShop, your URL structure often changes by default (e.g., to mystore.com/blue-shirt or PrestaShop's default structure).

If you delete the old site and launch the new one without telling Google where the pages went, you create "broken links" (404 errors). Google punishes this by dropping your rankings, effectively erasing years of SEO work. The solution is a strategy called 301 Redirection.

Phase 1: Pre-Migration SEO Audit

You cannot protect what you haven't measured. Before migrating, create a benchmark of your current performance.

1. Crawl Your Current Site

Use a tool like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to crawl your existing store. You need a complete list of every live URL, including:

• Product pages
• Category pages
• Blog posts
• CMS pages (About, Contact, Policy pages)

2. Export Your Metadata

Ensure you have a backup of your Meta Titles, Meta Descriptions, and Keywords. If you are using a hosted platform (like Shopify or BigCommerce), you can usually export products to CSV to save this data.

Phase 2: The Migration Strategy

Here is how to use Migrate My Shop features to automate the protection of your SEO.

1. The "301 Redirect" Feature

This is the most critical step. A 301 Redirect is a permanent signpost that tells search engines: "The page moved from Address A to Address B. Please transfer all ranking power to Address B."

2. Migrate SEO URLs

If you want your new PrestaShop links to look exactly like your old links (e.g., keeping /products/ instead of changing to PrestaShop's default), you can customize URLs in PrestaShop's SEO settings. PrestaShop allows you to edit product and category URLs for SEO purposes using the URL Rewrites in the Back Office.

3. Transfer Images and Alt Text

Google Image Search is a major traffic source for eCommerce. If you migrate products but fail to migrate the "Alt Text" (the description of the image), you lose visibility. Ensure your migration plan includes full media transfer with alt text. Migrate My Shop handles this automatically.

Phase 3: Post-Migration SEO Checklist

Once the migration is finished and your store is live, perform these immediate actions to "ping" Google.

1. Generate a New Sitemap

PrestaShop has built-in sitemap generation functionality. You can access it in PrestaShop's SEO settings or use SEO modules. Generate your sitemap and ensure it's accessible at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. PrestaShop's sitemap includes products, categories, and other pages.

2. Google Search Console (GSC) Actions

• Verify the New Site: Ensure GSC has verified ownership of your new PrestaShop installation. You can verify via HTML tag, DNS record, or Google Analytics.
• Submit the Sitemap: Go to Index > Sitemaps and submit your new sitemap URL (yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml).
• Request Indexing: For your Homepage and top-selling Category pages, use the "URL Inspection" tool to manually request re-indexing.

3. Test Redirects

Do not assume they work. Click on 10 random old URLs from your spreadsheet. They should instantly load the corresponding product on the new site. If you see a 404 error, the redirect failed. Check PrestaShop's redirect configuration or SEO module settings if redirects aren't working.

4. Monitor 404 Errors

Use PrestaShop's SEO modules or Google Search Console to monitor 404 errors. Check this daily for the first two weeks and fix any broken paths immediately. PrestaShop allows you to set up custom redirects in the Back Office.

Common SEO Pitfalls to Avoid

The "Soft 404" Trap

Do not redirect all deleted products to your Homepage. Google treats this as a "Soft 404" and will stop ranking those keywords. Always redirect a deleted product to its parent category, not the homepage.

Speed is a Ranking Factor

PrestaShop is self-hosted, so you control performance optimization:

• Use PrestaShop's image optimization or compress images before upload.
• Enable PrestaShop's built-in caching (Smarty cache, CCC) and consider Redis for session/cache if available.
• Consider using a CDN for faster global access.
• Optimize your MySQL database regularly.
• Use a fast hosting provider with SSD storage.

Internal Linking Structure

If you had blog posts linking to products on your old site, those links might break during migration. Use PrestaShop's SEO tools or a broken link checker to scan your content and update internal hyperlinks.

PrestaShop-Specific SEO Considerations

• SEO-Friendly URLs: PrestaShop has built-in URL Rewrites. Configure this in PrestaShop's SEO settings to create clean, keyword-rich URLs.
• Meta Tags: PrestaShop's Back Office allows you to set meta titles and descriptions for each product and category. Migrate these during the data transfer.
• Structured Data: PrestaShop supports structured data (Schema.org) for products. Verify this is working correctly after migration using Google's Rich Results Test.
• URL Rewrites: PrestaShop uses URL rewrites for redirects. Redirects can be configured in the Back Office or via modules.

Conclusion

You don't have to choose between a better platform and your search rankings. With careful planning and the automated tools provided by Migrate My Shop, you can move your store while keeping your hard-earned SEO juice intact.

Ready to move? Start your Free Demo Migration and select the "301 Redirect" option to see how we preserve your data.