301 redirects: protect your Google rankings during a migration

When you move platforms, page addresses often change. Without redirects, old links lead to error pages, and search engines drop those pages from results. A 301 redirect passes visitors and most search value to the new address.

301 vs 302

• 301: moved permanently. Use this for a migration.
• 302: moved temporarily. Search engines may keep the old URL in their index.

Step 1: Collect the old URLs

Get every address on the old site: products, collections, pages and blog posts. Use your sitemap, your analytics (top landing pages), your search console report and a crawl of the site. Include URLs people have shared or linked to from other sites.

Step 2: Map each to the best new page

Create a spreadsheet with two columns, old URL and new URL.

Rules:

• If the product still exists, send it to the same product.
• If it was discontinued, send it to the closest category, not the home page.
• If the new platform uses the same address pattern, you may not need a redirect at all.

Step 3: Avoid chains and loops

A redirect chain is A to B to C. It slows pages and can lose value. Point old URLs straight to the final address. A loop sends visitors round in circles, so test for it.

Step 4: Add them to the new platform

Most platforms let you upload redirects as a CSV. If yours does not, ask support. Do this before you switch the domain, so that links work from the first minute.

Step 5: Test

Click a sample of old URLs, including the biggest traffic pages. Check that each reaches the right page with a 301 status. Free browser tools and crawlers show the status code.

Step 6: Monitor

After the switch, check your search console reports for crawl errors and 404 pages daily for two weeks. Add redirects for any important URL you missed. Submit your new sitemap (sitemaps and robots.txt).

How long to keep redirects

At least a year, and longer for pages with many links. Do not remove them just because traffic looks small.

Common mistakes

• Redirecting everything to the home page, which search engines may treat as an error.
• Forgetting the www and non-www versions.
• Forgetting URLs with parameters used by ads and emails.
• Leaving internal links pointing at old URLs instead of updating them.

What to do next

Export your top 50 pages by traffic and map those first. They carry most of your visibility, so protecting them matters most.