Changing Domains on Shopify

Planning and Preparation

ENSURE CORRECT SEARCH CONSOLE SETTINGS

Verify you own both the old and destination sites in Search Console. You can do this through a variety of ways (meta tag, Google Analytics, etc.) but our preference is you verify through your domain provider by updating the DNS record. It’s really simple. All you do is add a TXT record with the Google Search Console verification code.

If you changed any of the configuration settings in Search Console for your old site, make sure the new site’s setting have the same configurations as well.

• URL parameters: If you configured URL parameters on your old domain to control the indexing of the site, you should apply these to the new site.
• Crawl rate: You shouldn’t configured this. It’s not recommended by Google.
• Disavowed backlinks: If you uploaded any to your old site, you should re-upload them again using the new Search Console account. That being said, Google has come out and stated that they now view MOST bad back-links as something they just ignore and don’t penalize sites for them, but we still recommend doing it. Better to be safe than sorry.

MAKE SURE YOUR SERVER CAN HANDLE IT

Google is going to be crawling your new site much more than usual after a site migration. Why? Because your old site will be redirecting traffic to the new site and any crawling of the old site will be sent to the new site in addition to any new crawling on the new site! 

UPDATE DATA HIGHLIGHTER

If you used Data Highlighter on your old domain you should add it to your new one.

INCORPORATE NEW KEYWORDS

This is a GREAT opportunity to get back to the drawing board with your keyword research. Why transition all of the things that didn’t work with the old site to the new? You don’t have to and you shouldn’t.

For starters, if you don’t have a master keyword list, create one now based on what searches you think you would like your site to show up in the search engines for. If you want to use free tools, you can use Google Suggest or KWFinder to really dive in to potential keyword. 

Once you have your master keyword list, run a full keyword report on your site using a tool like SEMRUSH to identify every single keyword you are ranking on the top 10 pages of Google for. At electrIQ marketing, we offer services that focus on analyzing your site, brand, products, and other business components, which we then use to compile targeted keyword lists for optimal search engine performance. 

Once you have your keywords in order, cross reference this data with your master keyword list to see which keywords your site is currently NOT ranking for that you want to be ranking for (you can also do this the other way to see which keywords your site is ranking for that you didn’t think about… this may give you new keyword ideas).

Are there certain keywords you want to be ranking, but for some reason your site isn’t? Build out your content, update a page, or even create a brand new one that is better than what you were doing before. Make sure to integrate the keywords into the content.

You can actually permanently redirect any out-of-date content to equivalent or new pages that are higher quality and serve a better chance of ranking in Google for important keywords!

Execution

ADD EXISTING DOMAIN

1. From Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Domains
2. Click Connect existing domain
3. Enter the domain that you want to connect
4. Click Next

SETUP THE DOMAIN TO CONNECT TO SHOPIFY

If you purchased the domain through a third party, then you need to edit these DNS settings.

• Your A record should point to Shopify's IP address, which is 23.227.38.32
• Your CNAME record should point to shops.myshopify.com

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