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301 Redirect Map

A 301 redirect map is the most important artifact in any platform migration. It's a spreadsheet (or database) that lists every URL on your old store and pairs it with its destination on the new store. Old product URL goes to new product URL. Old collection URL goes to new collection URL. Old blog post URL goes to new blog post URL.

The map exists because URL structures change between platforms. Magento puts product URLs at /catalog/product/view/id/123. Shopify puts them at /products/handle. Without a redirect, Google sees a broken page and drops the ranking.

A complete map covers every product, every collection, every blog post, every static page, every redirect that already exists, and every URL receiving organic traffic in the last 12 months. For mid-market stores this is usually 5,000 to 50,000 URLs.

The map gets implemented as 301 redirects on the new platform. Shopify Plus has a native URL redirects feature with no row limit. Most migrations use a CSV upload through the admin or a custom script via the API.

If you skip the map, you lose rankings. If you do the map manually without crawling the old site, you miss URLs and lose rankings on the ones you missed. The map is the project.

Frequently asked questions

What is a 301 redirect map?

A spreadsheet pairing every old URL with its new URL, implemented as permanent 301 redirects at launch so rankings carry over.

How many URLs should a redirect map cover?

Every product, collection, blog post, static page, existing redirect and any URL with organic traffic in the last 12 months. For mid-market stores that is often 5,000 to 50,000 URLs.