A platform migration is one of the highest-risk moments in ecommerce SEO. Most of the damage that happens during migrations is entirely avoidable, and comes down to incomplete planning rather than anything inherent to changing platforms.
Map every URL before you migrate, not after
Every existing URL needs a mapped equivalent on the new platform before launch. This sounds obvious, but it's the single most commonly skipped step, usually because it's treated as a technical afterthought rather than a core part of the migration plan.
301 redirects, done properly
Every changed URL needs a genuine 301 redirect to its new equivalent, not a blanket redirect to the homepage. Redirect chains, where one redirect points to another redirect instead of the final destination, should be avoided, since they add unnecessary load time and can dilute the ranking signal being passed through.
Benchmark before you launch
Capture your current rankings, traffic, and top-performing pages before the migration happens. Without this baseline, it's genuinely difficult to diagnose whether a post-migration issue is real damage or just normal fluctuation.
Watch closely in the first few weeks
The period immediately after launch is when issues are easiest to catch and fix. Monitor crawl errors, indexing status, and ranking movement closely, rather than assuming everything's fine because the site looks right visually.
Preserve content, not just URLs
Optimised titles, meta descriptions, and page content need to survive the move intact. It's common for this content to get lost or reset to generic defaults during a platform switch if it isn't explicitly carried over.