Website Migration to WordPress or Shopify

Why website migrations lose rankings

Google ranks individual pages at individual addresses. Move to a new platform and most of those addresses change. A Wix blog post at one path becomes a WordPress post at another; a Squarespace product becomes a Shopify product under /products/. If nothing tells Google where each old page went, it sees hundreds of pages disappear and new ones appear, and the links other sites gave you point at error pages.

The usual causes of a post-migration drop are:

• No redirects, or every old page redirected to the homepage
• Pages quietly dropped because they looked unimportant but brought in traffic
• Page titles, headings and meta descriptions lost in the copy and paste
• Internal links still pointing at old addresses
• A staging site's "noindex" setting left switched on at launch
• Tracking not reinstalled, so nobody notices for weeks

Google Search Central says that for small and medium sites it can take a few weeks for most pages to move, and rankings may fluctuate during that time. A careful migration keeps that wobble short. A careless one can take months to recover from.

Platform by platform: what you can bring with you

Where you are moving to matters as much. WordPress lets us set permalinks to match your old URLs exactly, which means fewer redirects. Shopify uses fixed patterns such as /products/, /collections/, /pages/ and /blogs/, so almost every URL changes and redirects do the heavy lifting. Shopify's Help Center confirms its redirects only work from URLs that no longer load a page, and allows up to 100,000 redirects per store.

URL mapping and redirects, step by step

1. Inventory. We crawl the live site, pull your sitemap and export pages with impressions or clicks from Search Console, so nothing that earns traffic is missed. Backlinked pages from old campaigns often only show up here.
2. Decide each page's future. Keep, merge into a stronger page, or retire. Retired pages redirect to the closest relevant page, not the homepage.
3. Build the map. A spreadsheet with every old path, its new path and notes. You see it and can query it before anything goes live.
4. Load the redirects. When your domain moves away from Wix or Squarespace, the old platform stops serving it, so redirects are set on the new one: a redirect plugin or server rules on WordPress, the URL redirects import on Shopify. Google recommends permanent server-side redirects such as 301 or 308.
5. Test before and after DNS. We test the redirect list on the new site, switch DNS, then test every old URL again against the live domain.
6. Tell Google. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console and watch the coverage reports. The Change of Address tool is only needed if the domain itself changes.

Google advises keeping redirects for at least a year. We recommend leaving them in place indefinitely, because old links in emails, directories and social posts keep working.

Forms, tracking and the bits people forget

• Forms. Wix and Squarespace forms do not come with you. We rebuild them, add spam protection, and test that submissions reach the right inbox and do not land in junk. If you collect personal data, the privacy notice is updated to match the new setup.
• Email. Moving a domain's DNS can break email if the MX records are not copied. We check them before the switch.
• Analytics and tags. Google Analytics, Search Console, Tag Manager, Meta Pixel and any call tracking are reinstalled behind a cookie banner that follows the UK cookie rules.
• Google Business Profile. The website link is checked so it points at a live page, not a redirect chain.
• Structured data. Organisation, LocalBusiness, Product and FAQ schema rebuilt for the new templates.
• Speed. A migration is a chance to fix images and scripts. We aim for the Core Web Vitals thresholds published by web.dev: LCP 2.5 seconds or less, INP 200 milliseconds or less, CLS 0.1 or less.

WordPress also needs good hosting. Ours is run by dijihost from £1 a day + VAT, though you are free to host anywhere.

What a migration costs

Price depends on the number of pages and products, not on how scary the move feels.

• Small sites, up to 5 pages: from £250 + VAT, our Starter package, including the URL map, redirects, forms and tracking.
• Larger brochure sites, up to 15 pages: from £500 + VAT, our Business package, with copy rewritten for each service as part of the move.
• Online shops moving to Shopify or WooCommerce: from £750 + VAT.
• Large catalogues, membership sites or complex integrations: a fixed quote.
• Redirect-only jobs, where someone else built the new site and the redirects were missed: £45 an hour + VAT.

Not sure which platform to move to? Our WordPress vs Shopify comparison sets out the trade-offs. When you are ready, ask for a quote with your current web address.

What you get

• A full inventory of your current URLs from a crawl, your sitemap and Search Console
• A URL map spreadsheet: every old address, its new address and the redirect
• Pages, blog posts and images moved and tidied, with titles, meta descriptions and alt text kept
• Contact, quote and booking forms rebuilt and tested, sending to the right inboxes
• 301 redirects set up on the new platform and tested after launch
• Analytics, Search Console and tracking reconnected, with the new sitemap submitted
• Checks for 404 errors and indexing problems in the weeks after launch

Prices and how it works

Websites from £250 + VAT, business websites from £500 + VAT and ecommerce from £750 + VAT. Small changes are £45 an hour + VAT. You get a fixed quote before we start.

1. Free chat

   Tell us about your business, who your customers are and what the website needs to do. No charge, no obligation.

2. Fixed quote

   You get a fixed price and a clear list of what is included, in writing, before anything starts.

3. Design

   We plan the pages and design the site around your customers, then share it for your comments.

4. Build and test

   We build it mobile-first, write or polish the copy, set up SEO foundations and test it on real phones.

5. Launch and hand over

   We launch, connect analytics and Search Console, and show you how to update it. You own it all.

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