Creating redirects for your WooCommerce URLs in Shopify

If you're already selling products through a WooCommerce store, people and search engines have already saved links to your site. When you switch your store over to Shopify, many of these links will break because Shopify has a different URL format for products.

For example, say you are selling a toucan stuffed animal. After you migrate your products to Shopify with the Ablestar WooCommerce Importer, the product will be at the following URLs:

In WooCommerce: https://toucanstore.com/shop/plush-toucan1/

On Shopify: https://toucanstore.myshopify.com/products/plush-toucan/

When you decide to launch your Shopify store, you will point your domain to Shopify. Your site will run smoothly (and probably faster), but links to https://toucanstore.com/shop/plush-toucan1/ will be broken. If a visitor clicks on a link to that page in Google, they'll just see a 'Page Not Found' error.

Not the best user experience.

The Solution - Link Manager App

We've developed an integration with our Link Manager app to automatically create redirects for your products and category pages. This way, if visitors access the old URLs, they'll get forwarded to the correct location and will not get stuck at the "Page Not Found" page. 

Additionally, you can use the Link Manager app to monitor your site for other broken links and redirect them to the correct page. 

Finally, all Ablestar WooCommerce Importer app users that install the app following the instructions below will receive an extended 30-day trial of the app. There's no obligation to continue using the app afterward, and if you uninstall it, your redirects will remain in place. 

Creating the Redirects

1. Go to your Shopify store's admin section and open up the Ablestar WooCommerce Importer app. You will see a list of all WooCommerce sites you've imported from near the top-left of the screen.

2. Click the Woo site you want to create redirects for, and then click Manage.

   

3. Scroll down to the URL Redirects section and click Create URL Redirects

   

4. On the next screen, click Install Link Manager

   

5. When you see the Shopify app store page for the WooCommerce Importer, click "Install" again

   

6. Accept the permissions and charge for the Link Manager app (All Ablestar WooCommerce Importer users get an extended 30-day trial. You can uninstall the app before then and still keep your redirects.)

   

7. After the app has been installed, you will see a "Quick Start Guide" for the Link Manager app.

   

8. For the first item on the list, you may need a theme installed
9. The second item is the 'site scan'. It is a good idea to scan the site now, but if you are migrating from WooCommerce, you will want to run another site scan after the domain has been moved over.

10. When you see the Link Manager screen, click the "View Quick Start Guide" link.

    

11. Then, near the bottom of the quick start guide, click the "Create Redirects" button

    

12. You can then use the Link Manager app to watch for other broken links on your Shopify site once you switch your domain over.