Migration scenarios

Redirect & 404 Manager works on an exact-path basis: there are no wildcards and no regular expressions. Every redirect applies to exactly one source path. For many URL changes this takes a bit more effort than a pattern-based rule, but it makes the behavior predictable and rules out false matches. The following scenarios show how to approach this in practice.

Shopware 5 to 6 migration

When moving from Shopware 5 to Shopware 6, SEO URLs often change due to the new URL scheme. Example:

• Old: /old-category/old-article.html
• New: /old-category/old-article

For every known old URL that is still linked externally (Google index, backlinks, customer bookmarks), create a 301 redirect to the new Shopware 6 URL.

Product renamed / SEO URL changed

If you rename a product and thereby change its SEO URL — e.g. from /mens-sneaker-black to /mens-sneaker-classic-black — Shopware itself does not create an automatic redirect. Manually create a 301 redirect from the old to the new URL before publishing the change.

Category restructured

If you move a category within the category tree or rename it, its URL usually changes as well, e.g. from /women/shoes to /women/sneakers. Since all underlying product URLs may depend on the category URL too, pay particularly close attention to the 404 log after the change so you don't miss an affected URL.

Relaunch from another shop system

For a full relaunch, e.g. from WooCommerce, Magento, or a custom system, the URL scheme usually differs fundamentally. Proceed as follows:

1. Before the relaunch, export the most important old URLs from Google Search Console or the old system
2. Create redirects in advance for the URLs with the most traffic
3. After the relaunch, keep watching the 404 log and follow up with Fix from 404

Campaign short links

For marketing campaigns, you can create short, memorable paths as redirects, e.g. /summer26 → https://www.your-shop.com/promo/summer-sale-2026. Use type 302 for these while the campaign is running, since the short link may need to become free again once the campaign ends — see Status Codes.

For very many URLs: use the 404 log as a data source

Since there are no wildcard rules, the following approach pays off for larger migrations affecting hundreds of URLs: instead of trying to guess every conceivable old URL in advance, let the 404 log run for a few days to weeks and create redirects specifically for the URLs that are actually being requested. In practice, this addresses the highest-value cases first — see Fix from 404.