Export WordPress SEO settings before moving to Shopify

Freeze the WordPress evidence before the old site starts moving

The riskiest part of a WordPress-to-Shopify migration often happens before Shopify is even built.

Someone changes a permalink setting. Someone disables an old SEO plugin. A staging theme strips out page-builder content. A redirect plugin is removed because it looks untidy. A blog category is deleted because nobody thinks it matters. By the time the Shopify site goes live, the team no longer has a reliable record of what the old WordPress site was doing.

That is how migrations become guesswork.

Before the Shopify build starts making irreversible decisions, capture the WordPress SEO evidence while the old site is still intact. The goal is not to copy every WordPress setting into Shopify. The goal is to understand which settings, URLs and content assets are protecting search visibility, links, revenue and customer journeys.

A good export answers six practical questions:

1. Which WordPress URLs currently bring organic traffic, links, leads or revenue?
2. Which SEO settings are attached to those URLs?
3. Which redirects already exist before the migration?
4. Which pages are intentionally noindexed, canonicalised or excluded from the sitemap?
5. Which content is hidden inside Elementor, blocks, templates, custom fields or WooCommerce data?
6. What should each valuable WordPress asset become in Shopify?

If you cannot answer those questions, the Shopify migration is not ready for implementation.

The plugin export is evidence, not the plan

Rank Math, Yoast and similar plugins can export useful SEO data. That does not mean the export tells you what Shopify should do.

The plugin can show titles, descriptions, redirects, schema settings, noindex rules, sitemap behaviour and plugin configuration. It cannot tell whether a page still deserves to exist, whether a WooCommerce category should become a Shopify collection, or whether an old tag archive has any commercial value.

Treat every export as a clue.

For example:

• a WordPress page with strong organic traffic may need to become a Shopify page, a guide, or a collection support page;
• a WooCommerce product category may need to become a proper Shopify collection, not a basic redirect;
• a tag archive may be safe to retire, but only after checking traffic and backlinks;
• a noindex rule may be intentional, accidental or left over from a past experiment;
• a custom canonical may reveal duplicate content that should not be recreated in Shopify;
• a redirect plugin may contain years of decisions that must not be lost.

The export captures what WordPress was doing. The migration plan decides what Shopify should do next.

Create a single evidence folder before exporting anything

Do not let the migration evidence live in screenshots, inboxes and half-finished spreadsheets.

Create one shared folder before the first export. Use simple subfolders:

• 01-crawls
• 02-search-console
• 03-analytics
• 04-seo-plugin-exports
• 05-redirects
• 06-sitemaps
• 07-page-builder-content
• 08-shopify-url-map
• 09-launch-qa

The folder matters because migration decisions usually involve several people: owner, developer, SEO reviewer, content lead, paid media lead and sometimes an agency. If each person is looking at a different source of truth, the redirect map will be wrong.

Export the WordPress URL inventory first

Start with the URLs, not the plugin settings.

You need a list of the old site’s live URLs before you can decide which SEO settings matter. Pull URLs from several places because WordPress sites rarely have one complete source.

Use:

• a full crawl of the live WordPress site;
• the XML sitemap and sitemap index;
• Search Console top pages;
• analytics landing pages;
• backlink target exports;
• WooCommerce product and category exports;
• WordPress posts, pages, categories, tags and media URLs;
• old redirect plugin exports;
• paid landing page lists if ads have used organic URLs.

Then add a simple classification column:

This URL inventory becomes the foundation for every later export.

Export SEO plugin metadata with the URL beside it

Metadata is only useful if it stays attached to the correct URL.

Export or document:

• SEO title;
• meta description;
• focus keyword if available;
• canonical URL;
• robots/noindex setting;
• schema type or schema override;
• social title and social description if they drive sharing;
• sitemap inclusion/exclusion status.

Do not copy this data blindly into Shopify. Some metadata should be preserved because the page role is staying the same. Some should be rewritten because the Shopify destination has a different purpose.

A common example:

A WordPress category called /category/running-guides/ might have a title built for editorial content. If the Shopify destination is a commercial collection, the metadata should not simply be copied. The page role changed.

Export redirects before changing plugins or hosting

Redirects are easy to lose and hard to reconstruct.

Check:

• Rank Math redirects;
• Yoast redirects if used;
• Redirection plugin exports;
• server-level redirects;
• .htaccess rules;
• host/CDN redirects;
• WooCommerce plugin redirects;
• historical launch or replatforming redirect files.

Add each redirect to the migration evidence sheet with:

• source URL;
• current destination;
• status code if known;
• whether it is still used;
• whether the destination will exist in Shopify;
• whether the redirect should be recreated, replaced or retired.

Old redirects can hide important history. A URL that no longer exists may still receive backlinks or branded traffic. Do not delete it just because it is not visible in the current navigation.

Document noindex, canonical and sitemap rules

WordPress SEO plugins often contain indexation decisions that never appear in normal page copy.

Before migration, capture:

• noindex settings on posts, pages, products, categories and tags;
• canonical overrides;
• sitemap exclusions;
• robots.txt rules;
• plugin-level settings for archives, media pages, author pages and search pages;
• custom template logic that changes meta robots tags.

Then ask: should Shopify inherit the intent, or was the old setting just WordPress housekeeping?

For example:

• noindexing thin tag archives may be correct;
• noindexing a high-value category may be a serious mistake;
• excluding media attachment pages is usually WordPress-specific;
• custom canonicals may point to duplicate content that should be resolved during the Shopify build.

This is where a migration can improve the site rather than merely preserve it.

Capture rendered content, not just database content

WordPress can show content that is not obvious in exports.

Elementor, blocks, shortcodes, custom fields, theme templates, review plugins, product tab plugins and WooCommerce extensions can all output important visible text. If you only export the database fields, you may miss content that search engines and users currently see.

Before migration, collect rendered examples for:

• top organic pages;
• top WooCommerce product pages;
• top product categories;
• important landing pages;
• long-form guides;
• pages with calculators, tables, FAQs or custom widgets;
• pages using Elementor or heavy page-builder layouts.

For important pages, save the rendered HTML or at least copy the visible content into the migration sheet. This prevents the Shopify version from launching with a thinner version of a page that used to rank.

Connect SEO settings to Search Console and analytics

Not every WordPress URL deserves the same care.

Once the SEO settings are exported, join them to performance evidence:

• Search Console clicks and impressions;
• organic landing page sessions;
• assisted revenue or leads;
• backlinks;
• conversions;
• internal-link importance;
• current indexation status.

Then create a priority band:

This stops the team spending hours preserving weak tag archives while high-value categories are handled carelessly.

Turn the export into a Shopify decision sheet

The final output should not be a folder of exports. It should be a decision sheet.

For each meaningful old URL, add:

• old URL;
• content type;
• traffic/backlink/revenue evidence;
• current title and description;
• current index/canonical status;
• existing redirect if any;
• Shopify destination type;
• new Shopify URL;
• decision: keep, rebuild, merge, redirect, retire or investigate;
• owner;
• status;
• QA notes.

That sheet becomes the bridge between WordPress evidence and Shopify implementation.

What to export in the final seven days before migration

Use this order:

Day 1: Crawl and sitemap capture

Crawl the old WordPress site, export the XML sitemap, and save the current robots.txt file.

Day 2: Search Console and analytics exports

Export top landing pages, queries, pages with clicks, organic landing page sessions and conversion/revenue evidence.

Day 3: SEO plugin metadata

Export or document Rank Math, Yoast or other plugin metadata for important page types.

Day 4: Redirects and indexation rules

Export redirect plugin data, noindex rules, canonical overrides and sitemap exclusions.

Day 5: WooCommerce and page-builder evidence

Export products, categories, product descriptions, rendered page-builder content and important custom fields.

Day 6: Backlink and internal-link checks

Identify linked-to URLs and important internal destinations. Mark them as P1 or P2 if they support traffic, authority or revenue.

Day 7: Build the Shopify decision sheet

Combine the evidence into a single working sheet before implementation begins.

Red flags that mean the migration is not ready

Pause the migration if:

• nobody can provide a complete old URL list;
• SEO plugin settings have already been reset or removed;
• redirect exports are missing;
• Elementor/page-builder content has not been checked;
• WooCommerce categories have not been mapped to Shopify collections;
• no one has exported Search Console landing page data;
• metadata is being copied without checking page role;
• old tag and archive URLs are being ignored without evidence;
• Shopify URLs are being built before old URL priorities are known.

These problems are easier to fix before launch than after organic traffic drops.

What to do next

If you are still preparing the move, use this page first, then move to the WordPress to Shopify SEO migration implementation guide.

If WooCommerce is part of the old site, also use the WooCommerce to Shopify migration hub and the Shopify redirect mapping guide.

If the migration is already live and traffic has dropped, start with the Shopify SEO traffic drop after migration guide instead.