In Turbify, the URL of every page in the store is simply shown as www.yourstoredomain.com/[id].html, where id is the id of the page itself. While Shopify has the equivalent of the Turbify ID with its handle attribute, the way Shopify structures URLs is very different from Turbify. As you move your store over to Shopify, you have to make sure that search engines, other sites that link to your current pages, and visitors who may have bookmarked your pages will still end up on the correct pages after the move. That is where so-called 301 redirects come into play.
A 301 redirect is a standard way to tell whoever is trying to visit your old pages that those pages have moved to a new location. 301 redirects are typically entered into a CSV file with 2 columns: an old URL and a new URL. Once you have this file, you can upload it into your content management system. In Shopify, this is under Content > Menus > URL Redirects.
However, before you can upload anything, you first have to generate this file.
Shopify organizes URLs using a structure like this:
- Products: /<handle>
- Collections: /collections/<handle>
- Blogs: /blogs
- Blog article: /blogs/<handle>
- Static pages: /pages/<handle>
- Contact Us page: /pages/contact
- About Us page: /pages/about
- Shipping info: /pages/shipping-info
- Refund Policy: /policies/refund-policy
- Privacy Policy: /policies/privacy-policy
- Terms of Service: /policies/terms-of-service
- Subscription Policy: /policies/subscription-policy
- Legal Notice: /policies/legal-notice
Your Turbify store will have products and collections (product sections), as well as one or more of these other page types. When we migrate a Turbify store, we automatically generate redirects for all product and collection pages, and manually generate the redirects for all other page types (although the redirects for some static pages, specifically those that exist in Catalog Manager, can be generated automatically).
It is perfectly fine to load and maintain your 301 redirect list in your unpublished Shopify store. These redirects will work in preview mode or when viewing your site with a password. They will not affect your existing Turbify store until your Shopify store goes live and you point your store's domain to Shopify.