A few weeks after a migration to Shopify, a merchant had a report on the table that looked much worse than before. The worry: the migration had cost rankings. Search Console painted a different picture: clicks were largely stable. Both numbers were right, they just measured different things. You don’t judge a migration by one screenshot, but by several signals over time.
The case
A merchant migrated from another store platform to Shopify. Redirects were in place, the sitemap submitted. Then came a report from a marketing tool showing visibility well down since the migration. Understandably, alarm bells went off.
Why the numbers aren’t comparable
- Different sources measure different things. Many marketing tools estimate visibility from a sample of keywords. Search Console shows real clicks and impressions from Google.
- New URLs take time. Google has to visit every old URL, follow the redirect and index the new one. Tools that count by URL see losses during this phase that aren’t real.
- Tracking changes too. New system, new measurement. A before-and-after comparison falls flat when the way you measure has changed.
What we measure instead
| Signal | Where | What we look for |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks and impressions | Search Console | Trend over weeks, not individual days |
| Redirects | Crawler, spot checks | Every important old URL lands on the right new one |
| Pages not found | Search Console, your own 404 page | Close new gaps immediately |
| Indexing | Search Console | New URLs get indexed, old ones drop out |
| Sitemap | Search Console | Submitted, no errors |
We monitor this for the first 90 days after every migration. In this case, the overall picture showed: the migration was clean, clicks were stable. The bad report was a snapshot measured with the wrong yardstick.
Your takeaways
- Never judge a migration by a single number. Only several signals together give you the picture.
- Search Console is the most important source. It shows what Google really sees. Everything else is an estimate.
- Fluctuations in the first few weeks are normal. What matters is the trend after two to three months.
- Write down your numbers before the migration. Without a baseline from the same source, you can’t judge anything later.
Planning a migration, or unsure after one? We handle redirects and monitoring, so you don’t have to rely on a single report.