Technical SEO Traps to Avoid in Ecommerce Migrations

Talk given at BrightonSEO spring 2026.

The deck is about some of the more hidden technical SEO issues you may come across when replatforming your ecommerce store. Taken from a recent experience in moving from WooCommerce to Shopfiy, it details some of the perhaps lesser-known snags encountered during typical CMS migrations in ecommerce.

Transcript

1. Technical SEO Traps to Watch Out for in Ecommerce Migrations Owain Lloyd-Williams Independent SEO Consultant @owainlloydwilliams| https://speakerdeck.com/owainlw
2. HELLO. MY NAME IS OWAIN. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
3. As Seen on the Hotel Inspector… Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
4. Ecommerce Migrations: They Matter. Duh. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
5. 9 out of 10 site migrations damage SEO in some way. A recent study by Numen in November 2025 showed that.. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
6. Of 892 domains analysed, 17% of sites never recovered traffic to pre-migration levels. Search Engine Land say... Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
7. And a staggering 42% of sites never fully recovered their traffic. Search Engine Land say... Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
8. A 2025 survey showed 1 in 10 UK retailers lose £1m+ per year because their systems don’t talk to each other. Taking a Step Back... Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
9. Ecommerce platforms themselves are part of the problem Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
10. Common Misconceptions About Ecommerce Migration Simplicity Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
11. “We’re just changing the platform. SEO won’t be affected.” Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
12. “The new CMS is just more SEO friendly.” Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
13. “Content parity will just port over. In fact, it’ll be even better.” Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
14. “You’ll just be doing redirects, right?” Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
15. “Oh the staging site? Yeah, of course it’s not indexable.” Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
16. As SEOs, we know how to approach these. Plus, there’s so much information out there. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
17. Source: Search Natural Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
18. But oftentimes, things aren’t that simple. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
19. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
20. Issue 1: Platform Constraints & Impacts on URL Structure Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
21. Largely configurable URL nomenclature: /music/vinyl/name-of-product/ /artist/vinyl/name-of-product/ /shop/artist/name-of-product/ /product/ /product-category/ Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
22. Somewhat More Fixed. /products/ /collections/ /blogs/ Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
23. Redirect File With Thousands of Paths Like This. A Fine Use of Everyone’s Time. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
24. Yet, There Were Plenty of Examples of Journeys That Needed to Be Considered… Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
25. /music/vinyl/limited-edition-vinyl/ /shop/vinyl/limited-edition-vinyl/ /records/limited-edition-vinyl/ /artist/vinyl/limited-edition-vinyl/ /shop/limited-edition-vinyl/ /store/limited-edition-vinyl/ /shop/product/limited-edition-vinyl/ /product/limited-edition- vinyl/?utm_source=instagram /product/limited-edition-vinyl/?fbclid=12345 /Product/limited-edition-vinyl/ /PRODUCT/limited-edition-vinyl/ /product/Limited-Edition-Vinyl/ Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
26. Solution: Catch-All Safeguard: Wildcard Redirect/Regex Pattern Logic. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
27. Apache .htaccess file (Only on a CDN Layer!) RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/.*/([^/]+)/?$ RewriteRule ^.*$ /product/%1 [R=301,L] Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
28. /shop/vinyl/limited-edition-release/ /new-releases/limited-edition-release/ /product/limited-edition-release/ /product/limited-edition-release/ Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
29. Ngnix (again, only on old server/CDN!) ^/.*/([^/]+)/?$ Redirect target /product/$1 Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
30. Breaking This Down… Pattern: ^/.*/([^/]+)/?$ ^/ start of the path .*/ any number of folders ([^/]+) capture the final part (the slug) /?$ optional trailing slash Redirect target: /product/$1 Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
31. Risks • Over compensating on matching (non product URLs) • Redirect Chains • Breaking pagination • Relies on an old WooCommerce server or CDN edge Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
32. Issue 2: Accidental Duplicate Inventories Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
33. Parent Company & Individual Artist Site Individual artist site is powered by/shares infrastructure with… Parent record label site Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
34. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
35. Under the Hood This Means…. • Same SKUs • Same Inventories • Same Product IDs • Potential for Canonical Conflicts • Potential for Duplicate Content Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
36. Parent record label site Individual artist site Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
37. A Reminder of What Exists on Parent Site… • All the SKUs • All the Inventories • All the Product IDs • All the potential for Canonical Conflicts • All the potential for Duplicate Content Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
38. Which May Cause Something Like This… Indexation Stats Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
39. Removing the Offending Pages on the Artist Store Simply Wasn’t an Option. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
40. Solution: No index. Sitemap Cleanup. URL Removal Requests. And Then Some. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
41. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
42. Issue 3: Content Parity Mismatches Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
43. Artist Image Product Title Artist Image Product Title Content Somewhat less content Somewhat more content Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
44. Internal Linking & Taxonomies Will Also Differ Area WooCommerce Shopify Migration Risk Related Products Taxonomy-driven (categories, tags) Collection-driven Changes product clustering signals Cross-Sells/Up-Sells Native + plugin- enhanced Often app-based or manual Potential reduction in contextual linking Breadcrumb Structure True hierarchical depth Collection-based hierarchy Alters perceived site architecture Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
45. Page Titles (for example) May Get Left Behind Address Title 1 https://dev.MY-ARTIST.com/ I AM THE HOMEPAGE PAGE TITLE… https://dev.MY-ARTIST.com/collections/blah ….WHY AM I DUPLICATED FROM THE HOMEPAGE? https://dev.MY-ARTIST.com/products/bladiblah ….WHY AM I DUPLICATED FROM THE HOMEPAGE? https://dev.MY-ARTIST.com/products/bladiblahdeblah ….WHY AM I DUPLICATED FROM THE HOMEPAGE? https://dev.MY- ARTIST.com/collections/blobbylblobbyblobby ….WHY AM I DUPLICATED FROM THE HOMEPAGE? https://dev.MY-ARTIST.com/products/blobblobblob ….WHY AM I DUPLICATED FROM THE HOMEPAGE? Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
46. Structured Data Differences Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
47. Faceted Navigation and Crawl Traps Area What Changes SEO Risk Filter URL Structure Woo taxonomy-based filters vs Shopify parameter/app-based filters Crawl expansion & index bloat Duplicate Listings Same products accessible via multiple filter combinations Split ranking signals Crawl Traps Combinational URLs generated at scale Wasted crawl budget Canonical Control Less granular control in Shopify vs Woo plugins Harder duplicate suppression Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
48. Migration Considerations Consolidated Risk Area What Changes Between Platforms Why It Matters URL Architecture Magento/Woo flexible → Shopify fixed → BigCommerce semi- flexible Legacy structures can’t always be recreated Faceted Navigation Layered nav vs parameter filters vs app logic Crawl traps & duplicate URLs Template & Schema Logic Plugin-driven vs theme-driven vs automated Signal drift & ranking volatility Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
49. A Few More Areas to Consider… Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
50. JavaScript Rendering Mismatches Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
51. Hreflang Breaking in Multi-Region Stores Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
52. Understanding the Bigger Picture in Ecommerce Migrations Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
53. Crawl Tests Redirect Map Verification Content Parity Audits Staging Testing Pre-Launch Validation Steps for SEOs Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
54. Reframing Migrations as Architectural SEO Projects Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
55. Final Takeaways for Agencies & In-House Teams Embed SEO Early Build Internal Expertise Learn from Experience Continuous SEO Education Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co
56. THANK YOU. Owain Lloyd-Williams | owain@sonofjack.co