Your 15-Point Ecommerce Migration Checklist (Pre- & Post-Launch): Don't Let Your New Store Kill Your SEO

You’ve finally done it. You picked the new platform.

It’s shiny. It’s fast. It has all the features you’ve dreamed of. You can already picture the improved checkout flow, the slick new design, and the beautiful backend that doesn't feel like it was built in 1999.

There’s a real, palpable excitement, isn't there?

And then, usually around 2 AM, the other feeling hits. The cold-sweat, heart-in-your-throat terror.

• "What if I lose all my Google rankings?"
• "What if our customers log in and their order history is just… gone?"
• "What if I break a critical integration and orders stop flowing to our 3PL?"
• "What if I spend six figures on this new site, and it launches to the sound of crickets and 404 errors?"

I get it. I’ve been on the other end of those 2 AM panic calls. My name is Raaj, and I’m an engineer here at ClonePartner. We’ve seen it all. We’ve done over 750 custom data migrations, turning those "what if" nightmares into "that was easy" moments.

A platform migration isn't just a "facelift." It’s a digital heart transplant. You’re moving the entire nervous system of your business. And when the stakes are that high, you don't just "wing it."

Your fears are valid. Losing SEO and customer data are the two biggest (and most costly) ways a migration fails. But they are entirely preventable.

This isn't just another generic checklist. This is a 15-point battle plan, forged from the scar tissue of hundreds of complex projects. It’s your guide to ensuring your new store launches so smoothly, your customers and—just as importantly—Google never negatively notice.

Let's build this thing right.

Phase 1: The Pre-Launch Checklist (The 10-Point "Save Your Business" Plan)

This is it. This is 90% of the work. Get this right, and you've practically guaranteed a smooth launch. Get this wrong, and… well, let’s just make sure you get it right.

1. Full SEO Audit & URL Structure Crawl

Before you pack a single box, you need to know exactly what’s in the house. You can't protect what you don't know you have.

• Why it matters: This is your "before" picture. It's the benchmark against which you'll measure success or failure. Without it, you’re flying blind. You’ll have no idea if your traffic dropped 5% or 50%, or which pages are to blame.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Crawl your entire current site. Use a tool like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs. Export this as your master "URL Inventory." This list is your new best friend.
  • Benchmark your rankings. What are your top 100 keywords? Which pages rank for them? Record it. This is your "Do Not Lose" list.
  • Identify your crown jewels. Dive into Google Analytics. Which pages bring in the most traffic? The most revenue? These get the white-glove treatment.
  • Check for existing junk. You probably have a mess of old 404s, redirect chains, and duplicate content. A migration is the perfect time to clean this up, not carry it over.

2. Create Your 301 Redirect Map

If you only have the energy to do one thing on this list perfectly, make it this one.

A 301 redirect is a permanent "moved" notice for search engines. It says, "Hey Google, that page you loved at old-url.com/product-a is now at new-url.com/p/product-a." This redirect passes the vast majority of your hard-earned SEO "link juice" to the new page.

• Why it's so critical: Forgetting this is like moving to a new house and not telling the post office. Every link, every bookmark, and every Google search result will lead to a 404 "Page Not Found" error. This is the fastest way to kill your SEO. Period.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Open that "URL Inventory" you just made.
  • In the next column, paste the new URL for every single old URL.
  • Yes, every. Single. One. Products, categories, blog posts, "About Us" pages, everything.
  • This spreadsheet will become massive and complex. It is the single most important document in your entire migration. Treat it like gold.

3. Define Your Data Migration Scope

This sounds simple. "We'll move products, customers, and orders." Oh, really?

What about product variants? Custom meta-fields? Customer tags? Loyalty points? Gift card balances? Downloadable files? Subscription data? What about customer passwords?

• Why it matters: This is where automated, "one-size-fits-all" tools fail, and they fail hard. Those tools follow a standard template. But your business isn't a template. You’ve spent years customizing your platform to work just for you.
• The "Gotcha": Let's talk customer passwords. For security reasons, you cannot migrate them. They are (or should be) heavily encrypted. This means you must have a plan for how customers will log in to the new site. The best flow is to migrate their accounts, and on their first visit, they are prompted to "create a new password" for their existing account. You must communicate this to them.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Make a definitive "what comes with us" list. Be granular.
  • Products: SKUs, titles, descriptions, all images, meta-fields, tags, inventory, variants.
  • Customers: Name, email, addresses, phone, customer tags, account creation date.
  • Orders: Full history. All line items, shipping info, tax, discount codes used, fulfillment status.
  • Other Data: Blog posts, static pages, product reviews, loyalty points.
  • The ClonePartner Insight: This is precisely why we exist. An automated tool can't handle your unique custom_field_for_dealers. It will just skip it. Our engineers write custom scripts that map your unique data structure to your new one. We don't care how weird your setup is; we can move it.

4. Product & Category Data Cleansing

You know that messy garage full of junk you've been meaning to clean? You wouldn't just shovel all that junk into a brand new, custom-built house, would you?

• Why it matters (The New Reason): This used to be just for "good user experience." Not anymore. We're in the age of AI search. Google's AI Overviews and engines like Perplexity use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). This means they ingest your product descriptions to build their answers. If your descriptions are a mess of old formatting and conflicting info, the AI can't read them. You won't be "retrieved," and you'll be invisible in AI-generated answers.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Standardize your tags (Small, S, sm all become Small).
  • Optimize your images. Use high-res, uniform-sized images.
  • Write clear, factual, and extractable descriptions. Think bullet points and simple sentences that an AI can easily quote.
  • Consolidate and clean up your category structure. Make it logical.

5. Customer Account & Order History Migration

This isn't a data point. This is your relationship with your customer. Losing it is a betrayal of their trust.

• Why it matters: A customer logs into your shiny new site, goes to "My Account," and sees... nothing. No past orders. No saved addresses. As far as they're concerned, they're a stranger. You've just erased five years of loyalty. They are now 100x more likely to just go to your competitor.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Confirm your plan from Step 3.
  • Ensure the link between a customer and all their past orders is iron-clad.
  • Have your customer service team test this. Can they look up a test customer and see their full history?

6. Migrate SEO Content (Blogs, Metas, Alts)

People get so focused on products they forget about the content that sells the products.

• Why it matters: Your blog, your buying guides, and your FAQs are likely driving a massive amount of your organic traffic. This content is also prime RAG-fodder for AI search. When a user asks an AI, "what's the best [product type] for [activity]," you want that AI to quote your buying guide.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Move all blog posts, including their images, categories, and tags.
  • Migrate all your on-page SEO: Meta Titles, Meta Descriptions, and Image Alt-Tags.
  • Move your static pages: "About Us," "Contact," "Shipping & Returns," etc.
  • Check all internal links. Your old blog posts are probably linking to old product pages. Those links must be updated to point to the new URLs.

7. Set Up the New Platform & Test Environment

Finally, you can start building the new house. But it's not "live." This is your private sandbox, your staging site.

• Why it matters: You need a safe place to break things without your customers seeing.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Install your new theme and customize it.
  • Configure all your core settings: shipping zones, tax rates, payment gateways (in test mode), etc.
  • CRITICAL: Password-protect your test site and block search engines using a robots.txt file and a "noindex" meta tag. The last thing you want is Google indexing your half-finished, "lorem ipsum" test site.

8. Run a Full Test Migration (or... Five)

Time for the dress rehearsal.

• Why it matters: You will find something you forgot. I guarantee it. "Oh, I forgot about the is_wholesale customer tag." "Wait, why are all the product reviews dated today?" This is when you find those errors, not at 3 AM on launch night.
• The ClonePartner Insight: This is our "killer feature," if you ask me. We offer unlimited sample migrations. Why? Because we know you'll find things. With an automated tool, you get one shot, or you have to pay again. With us, you just send an email to your dedicated engineer. "Hey, can we re-map that field?" We update the custom script and run it again. And again. We do this until you log into the test site, look at your data, and say, "It's perfect."

9. Test All Core Integrations

Your store doesn't live in a vacuum. It talks to your 3PL, your ERP, your email (Missive), and your help desk (Gorgias).

• Why it matters: A broken integration is a silent killer. The site looks fine, customers are buying, but nothing is shipping because the order data never made it to your warehouse. Yikes.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Connect and test every app in your new test environment.
  • Place a test order. Does it show up in your fulfillment software?
  • Sign up as a new customer. Do you land in the right Klaviyo "Welcome" flow?
  • This is tedious. It is also mission-critical. We’ve managed over 500 app integrations, and this is where the details haunt you.

10. Pre-Launch Code & Content Freeze

Pencils down. Everyone, stop working.

• Why it matters: You need to "freeze" your old site. The data you run in your final test migration (Step 8) needs to be the final data you go live with. If your marketing team adds a new blog post to the old site an hour before you launch... that post is gone.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Announce a firm "freeze" date and time (e.g., 48 hours before launch).
  • Stop all new product additions, content updates, and code changes on the old site.
  • This is your "point of no return" for data.

Phase 2: The Go-Live & Post-Launch Checklist (Don't Pop the Champagne... Yet)

It's launch day. This isn't the finish line. This is the first lap. Stay vigilant.

11. Implement the 301 Redirects

This is it. The moment of truth.

• Why it matters: This is when you "flip the switch" and tell the entire internet where your new site lives.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Take your old site offline (put up a "We're updating, be back soon!" maintenance page).
  • Point your domain (DNS) to the new platform.
  • Upload/implement your 301 redirect map (from Step 2).
  • Test immediately. Grab 20-30 of your most important "old" URLs and paste them into your browser. Do they redirect to the correct new pages? Use a "redirect checker" tool to ensure they are 301s, not 302s.

12. Test Payment Gateways & Checkout Flow

Your site is live. It's beautiful. Can anyone actually give you money?

• Why it matters: I’ve seen a six-figure launch go live with the payment gateway still in "Test Mode." For 6 hours. That's a "fireable offense" level of oversight.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Run a real credit card. Buy a $1 product. Use a real, live card (not a test number).
  • Test every single payment method: PayPal, Apple Pay, Afterpay.
  • Test the full checkout flow as a guest and as a logged-in customer.
  • Test a discount code.
  • Run a test refund.

13. Install Analytics & Tracking Pixels

You're blind without this.

• Why it matters: Is the site working? Is traffic flowing? Are sales happening? Your analytics are your new dashboard.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Install Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
  • Install your Google Tag Manager container.
  • Install your Facebook Pixel, TikTok Pixel, etc.
  • VERIFY THEM. Open the GA4 "Realtime" report and browse your own site. Do you see yourself? Place a test order (again). Does the "purchase" event fire? With the correct value?

14. Submit New Sitemap & Monitor Google Search Console

Time to officially introduce Google to your new home.

• Why it matters: You want Google to find and index your new URLs as fast as possible. Google Search Console (GSC) is your direct diagnostic line.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Find your new sitemap.xml URL (your new platform generates this).
  • Go to GSC, add the new sitemap.
  • For the next two weeks, you will live in the "Indexing > Pages" and "Crawl Stats" reports. You will see 404s. Your job is to look at which pages are 404ing. Is it an important page from your 301 map? (Bad! Fix it!) Or is it an old junk URL Google just found? (Good! Let it die.)

15. Run a Post-Launch SEO & Speed Audit

After about a week, it's time for your post-op checkup.

• Why it matters: You need to confirm the transplant was a success.
• Your To-Do List:
• • Run a new crawl (like in Step 1) on the new site. Are there any broken internal links? 404s?
  • Run your new site through Google's PageSpeed Insights to check your Core Web Vitals. Is the new site actually as fast as you hoped?

Check your rankings (from Step 1). It's normal to see a "Google Dance" (some small fluctuations) for a few weeks. It is not normal to see your rankings fall off a cliff. If that happens, your 301s (Step 2) are the first place to look.

A Successful Launch Is a Seamless One. (And "Easy" Is a Choice.)

Whew. That's a lot, isn't it?

A successful ecommerce migration is one that is, frankly, boring. It's one your customers never notice and Google simply accepts as a positive change.

This 15-point checklist is the map. But as you can see, reading the map is very different from climbing the mountain. Almost every "gotcha" on this list stems from one simple truth: every business is unique.

Those automated, one-click migration tools? They're tempting. They're cheap. And they only work if your business is 100% "out of the box." But yours isn't. You have custom fields. You have complex logic. You have unique integrations. Those tools are built on a "standard template," and they will fail the moment they encounter something they don't recognize.

This is where ClonePartner is different.

We are not an automated tool. We are a team of expert engineers. Our entire service is built on the fact that your business is unique, and your data deserves to be treated that way.

• We don't use templates. We write custom scripts from scratch, just for you.
• We've handled over 750+ custom migrations and 500+ app integrations. We’ve seen (and solved) every weird edge case you can imagine.
• We believe your data is your most critical asset, which is why we’re AICPA SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, ISO 27001, and HIPAA compliant.
• We offer unlimited sample migrations so you can be 100% confident before you flip the switch.

And here’s the best part: because our engineer-led process is so efficient, our service often comes at a similar cost to those rigid, one-size-fits-all automated tools.

You're making a massive investment in your new platform. Don't let the most critical part, the data migration, be the part that brings it all crashing down.

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