Fixing Today’s Closeout’s SEO After a Failed eCommerce Migration

A failed eCommerce migration can be devastating, wiping out years of SEO progress and causing businesses to lose so much of their organic traffic overnight. Today’s Closeout experienced this firsthand when their Volusion to BigCommerce migration resulted in a complete collapse of their search rankings.

Within just two months, their daily organic clicks dropped from 70 to zero, bringing sales to a halt. Without immediate action, their online presence and revenue would continue to suffer.

By the time they contacted MAK Digital, they were in panic mode, seeking a solution to restore their SEO rankings and recover lost traffic. After conducting a thorough eCommerce SEO audit, we uncovered major eCommerce migration errors that had caused search engines to deindex thousands of pages.

Pain Points: What Went Wrong?

Our comprehensive SEO audit revealed multiple critical errors that led to the site’s disappearance from search engine results. Fortunately, their original Volusion store was still accessible behind a maintenance firewall, allowing us to compare it with the newly migrated BigCommerce site.

1. URL Structure Was Completely Mismanaged

BigCommerce operates on Apache servers, while Volusion used Microsoft servers. The difference? Microsoft servers ignore case sensitivity in URLs, but Apache servers do not. This caused search engines to treat uppercase and lowercase URLs as separate pages, creating duplicate content issues and broken links.

Additionally, the migration did not retain SEO-friendly vanity URLs. Instead, product and category URLs were randomly assigned new structures, disrupting search rankings and making it difficult for search engines to understand the site’s hierarchy.

2. Faulty Redirects Led to Broken Links

Proper 301 redirects are essential during a migration to maintain SEO authority. However, the migration introduced 15,000 incorrect redirects, causing original backlinks and indexed pages to lose search engine recognition. Without proper redirects, the website lost valuable traffic, making it nearly invisible in search results.

3. Category and Product Issues Removed Indexed Pages

Instead of preserving high-ranking categories, the migration disabled them and introduced an entirely new category structure. This change caused Google to deindex previously ranked categories and start fresh with unoptimized new ones.

Additionally, every original product was marked “out of stock”, removing them from Google’s index. Instead of retaining and optimizing these product pages, new products were created with different URLs, making thousands of keyword-rich pages disappear from search results.

4. Indexing Collapse Due to Technical SEO Issues

Before migration, the site had 6,200 indexed pages. After migration? That number had dropped to 1,400, and it was rapidly declining.

Further complicating matters, the site previously used “www” URLs, but the migration changed the domain structure to a root domain without proper indexing signals. This confused search engines, making it appear as if the site was brand new with no search history.

5. Missing Content and Schema Markup Impacted Search Visibility

Content migration was incomplete, resulting in:

• Only one product image per listing was transferred, lowering engagement.
• Category descriptions were only partially migrated, causing a loss of SEO content.
• Broken schema markup, preventing Google from properly displaying product snippets.

With thousands of pages disappearing from Google’s index, it was clear that immediate action was required.

How We Fixed the SEO Disaster

Given the severity of the problem, our first recommendation was to roll back the migration and redo it properly. However, the client chose to correct the issues on the live BigCommerce store, making the recovery process more complex.

1. Restoring Proper URL Structures and Redirects

Before making any changes, we prioritized data integrity to avoid further complications. We required the client to subscribe to Rewind, a trusted backup solution, ensuring a secure restoration point before making major live modifications. Our company policy mandates having dependable backups before implementing critical changes, as this safeguards against data loss and unintended errors.

With a backup in place, we proceeded to eliminate all incorrect redirects and implement new ones based on a custom script that matched BigCommerce URLs to their original Volusion counterparts. This approach allowed search engines to properly recognize and reindex lost pages, restoring visibility and rankings.

2. Recovering Lost Product Pages and Improving Indexing

Instead of leaving out-of-stock products hidden, we created a “Discontinued Product” template that transformed them into SEO-friendly gateway pages. This allowed Google to continue indexing these pages and maintain keyword relevance.

3. Restoring Missing Content and Schema Markup

During the migration, essential metadata and structured data were either lost or improperly transferred, affecting how product pages appeared in search results. To fix this, we reconfigured schema markup, ensuring that product snippets displayed correctly in Google search results.

By ensuring that schema markup was fully optimized, we helped Today’s Closeout regain visibility in organic search and Google Shopping results, making it easier for potential customers to find their products.

4. Enhancing Search Functionality

Since BigCommerce’s default search function was limited, we integrated Searchanise, improving search accuracy and allowing customers to find products more easily.

Results: Full SEO Recovery in One Month

Within just one month, our SEO recovery strategy delivered significant results. The site not only regained its rankings but actually surpassed pre-migration traffic levels.

By March 3, 2025, the website achieved:

• 8,670 indexed pages (compared to 6,200 pre-migration).
• 1,190 registered product snippets & merchant listings (compared to zero before recovery).

Today’s Closeout successfully restored its search visibility, organic traffic, and sales.

Why SEO Planning is Essential for eCommerce Migrations

This case study highlights why SEO planning must be a priority during platform migrations. Failing to account for URL structures, redirects, and indexing can erase years of search visibility overnight, leading to severe revenue losses and a dramatic decline in organic traffic.

A well-executed migration ensures that SEO-friendly URLs are preserved, preventing ranking losses and maintaining search engine authority. Keeping product and category structures intact allows search engines to recognize the site, preventing deindexing issues. Properly transferring schema markup and metadata ensures that products continue appearing in search results with rich snippets, maintaining visibility in Google’s merchant listings. Additionally, configuring indexing settings correctly helps search engines properly recognize and rank the new site, avoiding unnecessary traffic drops.

If your business is planning a platform migration, or if you’ve experienced a sudden drop in organic traffic after switching platforms, MAK Digital can help. Our expertise in eCommerce SEO, structured migrations, and ranking recovery ensures that your site maintains its search visibility and traffic performance.

Contact MAK Digital today to protect your migration and keep your eCommerce business thriving.