Traffic drop after switching from WordPress to Shopify... Any ideas?

Technical Aspects
21

You lost $1k per day, hired people on Fiverr and didn’t make sure the URLs stayed the same or had proper redirects?

Get a good SEO expert, let them check the old setup and set up the needed redirects. Stop trying to save money on important parts of your business. You get what you pay for.

22

This sounds familiar. Many of my clients who switched platforms and did it cheaply lost 60-70% traffic overnight. It took almost half a year to recover.

Can I ask:

Why did you switch to Shopify if WordPress was working fine?

WordPress and Shopify have different URL structures and need redirects. It’s hard to say what exactly happened without seeing the search console graphs. If you don’t mind, you can send me the domain and I can check it. It’s up to you.

It seems like you’re seeing a surgeon and they’re telling you, ‘Let’s cut you open and hope to find out what’s wrong!’ :raised_back_of_hand: ‘Hope’ is the key word. And that’s the problem.

23

@trixiebecky
Imagine hiring someone on Fiverr to save money and then ruining your whole SEO because you hired someone who doesn’t care about quality.

24

Zack12 said:
@trixiebecky
Imagine hiring someone on Fiverr to save money and then ruining your whole SEO because you hired someone who doesn’t care about quality.

Yeah, exactly, I agree. The surgeon who ‘hopes’ they’ll find out what’s wrong. No thanks, I’ll spend more to avoid ‘hope’ and aim for ‘certainty’.

25

Go to the search console, look at your search terms report and indexed links. Click on each link and find the broken ones. You probably lost several links along the way.

26

Did you move everything exactly? Maybe new URLs without redirects or missing important website content.

27

Just to confirm - did all your page URLs change?

28

Site migrations can often cause temporary traffic drops due to indexing issues, even if main keywords are still ranking well. Your SEO should start recovering as your Shopify store gets re-indexed. Meanwhile, make sure you’ve set up redirects for all old URLs to the new ones to keep link value. Also, keep fixing errors and check your site’s speed as it affects traffic. Lastly, watch your analytics for any changes in user behavior. Patience is important here.

29

Fix redirects… hope you get the traffic back quickly but make sure you fix all the URLs

30
  1. [IMPORTANT] Did the URLs (domain too) change? If the page URLs changed and you didn’t set up redirects, visitors might be hitting broken links.
  2. Is the content the same on Shopify? If you changed text or page structure, it could affect how people use your site and hurt your ranking.
  3. Did your site speed or mobile look change? Shopify might load differently than WordPress, which can affect traffic if pages load slower or look different on phones.
31

Google ‘301 redirect migration mapping’

32

I switched from bootstrap and tailwind css, the change was too fast and heavy and lost around 70% traffic.

I think if the changes are too big and sudden, Google can’t just adjust quickly.

My links were 100% okay

33

@ever
I think you are right because my site is fine and there are redirects.

Did it recover?

34

I think it’s normal to lose rankings and traffic when you move your site from WordPress to Shopify. Your URL structure probably changed. Shopify works differently and has fixed site structures. Even with redirects, you might have forgotten to change internal links and image URLs. Also, your click rates might have dropped or something like that. You need to look into it deeply to find the reasons.

35

Google will recheck your site after the move, which will likely cause the traffic drop.