Ecommerce migration audit
Product catalogs do not fail like small marketing sites. Redirects, canonicals, product availability, duplicate category routes, faceted URLs, sitemap splitting, and post-launch monitoring decide whether the migration keeps search demand or loses it.
Catalog failure points
| Area | How it fails | Audit check |
|---|---|---|
| Product redirects | Old WooCommerce product URLs, deleted products, SKU changes, and trailing slash variants do not map to one final product or replacement category. | Merge old product sitemap, GSC top pages, GA4 landing pages, backlink URLs, and current product exports before assigning redirect targets. |
| Category redirects | Old product-category routes redirect to broad category pages, search pages, or the homepage instead of the closest matching collection. | Map each category, subcategory, pagination pattern, and renamed collection before launch. QA by old URL group, not one sample URL. |
| Faceted URLs | Filters, sort orders, tags, colors, sizes, and search URLs become indexable duplicate pages or disappear without preserving valuable long-tail demand. | Define which filters are indexable, noindexed, canonicalized, blocked, or redirected. Do not let the frontend decide accidentally. |
| Duplicate category routes | The same catalog path resolves through legacy `/product-category/`, localized slugs, tag pages, CMS collection routes, and new frontend routes. | Crawl duplicate route patterns and compare status, canonical, sitemap inclusion, internal links, and Google-selected canonical samples. |
| Product canonicals | Products canonicalize to unavailable variants, old WordPress URLs, category pages, or URLs that are not in the sitemap. | Validate canonical generation for products, variants, query strings, pagination, out-of-stock pages, and localized product routes. |
| Sitemap splitting | A single sitemap mixes products, categories, articles, redirects, noindex pages, and product-not-found URLs with unreliable lastmod values. | Split product, category, article, and page sitemaps. Verify every URL returns 200, is indexable, self-canonical, and internally linked. |
| Stock and discontinued URLs | Out-of-stock products either stay indexable forever with thin content or get removed without preserving demand and backlinks. | Define rules for temporarily out of stock, permanently discontinued, replacement products, category fallback, and noindex decisions. |
| Post-launch monitoring | The store launches, Googlebot finds sitemap gaps and canonical conflicts, and nobody checks the first 30 days by URL type. | Monitor product, category, filter, and article groups separately in GSC, crawl exports, sitemap reads, and URL Inspection samples. |
Audit boundary
A smaller marketing or content site where the URL inventory, template count, and redirect map are contained.
Output: 72-hour audit covering redirects, metadata, schema, canonicals, sitemap, indexability, performance, and prioritized fixes.
A WooCommerce, ecommerce, or catalog migration with roughly 1,000 to 10,000 URLs, product/category templates, filters, stock states, and urgent ranking risk.
Output: Custom-scope recovery or migration audit with URL group sampling, product/category coverage, redirect QA, canonical rules, sitemap splitting, and monitoring plan.
The migration already launched and rankings, indexed pages, or product/category visibility dropped.
Output: 48 to 72 hour evidence pass when feasible: GSC impact triage, crawl checks, sitemap eligibility, redirects, canonicals, legacy leakage, and developer action list.
Evidence pack
Catalog recovery needs old URL data, current crawl data, Search Console impact, and implementation access. A few sample product URLs will not show the failure pattern.
URL inventory
Old URL
New URL
URL type
Priority tier
Old clicks
Old impressions
Backlinks
Current status
Final URL
Canonical target
Sitemap included
Internal links
Stock state
Fix owner
Example findings
| Finding | Evidence | Fix | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product-not-found URLs in sitemap | Product URLs return 200 but render unavailable or not-found content with noindex. | Remove ineligible products from the XML sitemap, redirect discontinued products where there is a replacement, and keep temporary stock rules explicit. | P0 if products had clicks, backlinks, or revenue. |
| Legacy product-category route is indexable | `/product-category/storage` and `/collections/storage` both return 200 and canonicalize to themselves. | Choose one indexable category URL, redirect or canonicalize the duplicate, and align sitemap/internal links. | P0 for categories with pre-launch rankings. |
| Faceted pages explode crawl paths | Color, size, sort, tag, and price parameters generate thousands of indexable combinations. | Define indexable filter rules, canonical non-indexable filters to the clean category, and block or nofollow crawl traps when appropriate. | P1 unless filters drove meaningful search demand. |
| Redirects collapse to homepage | Old product and category URLs redirect to `/` or a generic catalog page. | Map old URLs to the closest product, replacement product, category, or intentionally retired 410/404 decision. | P0 for URLs with clicks, backlinks, or revenue. |
| Category pagination canonical conflict | Paginated category pages canonicalize to page 1 but still appear in sitemap or internal links. | Align pagination policy, sitemap inclusion, canonicals, and crawlable links for the category template. | P1 for large categories. |
Monitoring
Fit
The risk is not the platform name. The risk is whether product, category, filter, sitemap, canonical, redirect, and stock-state rules survive the move from WooCommerce to the new frontend or CMS.
Read the headless WordPress SEO guideSupporting assets
Use this to monitor products, categories, sitemap reads, URL Inspection samples, and post-launch issue rows.
Open resourceUse this for old product, category, tag, filter, and deleted URL mapping.
Open resourceUse this when product/category canonicals, sitemaps, redirects, and internal links disagree.
Open resourceUse this when the catalog already launched and rankings or indexed pages dropped.
Open resourceUse this to separate audit, recovery, rebuild, catalog, and monitoring cost bands.
Open resourceUse this for the unified custom-scope product across WooCommerce, Payload, and large custom catalogs.
Open resourceUse this if the new catalog or content site runs on Payload collections, custom slugs, preview, and Next.js route handlers.
Open resourceUse this to see the evidence-first deliverable shape before scoping a catalog audit.
Open resourceSend the launch date, GSC access, sitemap URLs, old URL exports, redirect map, product/category counts, and what changed in the frontend or CMS. The deliverable is a fix order your developers can implement.