Migrate your website to GoodBarber: the 301 redirects guide

Still deciding between keeping your website and switching to the app? Read our article on choosing between a website and an app first. This guide is for those who have decided: the web version of their app becomes their website.

Four situations call for a pause before you migrate.

Volume matters too: an app accepts up to 10,000 redirects (November 2026). Beyond that, keep the addresses that matter, as step 2 shows.

You need the list of your website's addresses, one per line, in a spreadsheet. Three sources complement each other:

• Your website's sitemap, often at /sitemap.xml. On WordPress, it is /wp-sitemap.xml since version 5.5, or /sitemap_index.xml with Yoast SEO.
• Google Search Console: the Performance report gives the pages that get clicks, the Links report the pages other websites point to.
• A crawler, which goes through your website the way Google would and picks up the pages the sitemap misses.

Add to this list the addresses your website already redirects: they still have links, and will have to lead directly to their new page. On WordPress, the Redirection plugin exports its own as CSV.

Not all your old addresses deserve a redirect. Keep the ones that get visits, the ones other websites link to, and the entry pages your readers know: your sections, your contact page. For a page you are dropping, a 404 error is the right answer: it says the page no longer exists.

Don't redirect everything to the home page. Google treats these redirects as missing pages ("soft 404s"), and the Redirects tab warns you beyond 20 redirects to the home page of your app. If no page replaces an old address, choose the closest one.

Two kinds of addresses can't be redirected: files (images, PDFs, documents) and addresses with parameters. Pages ending in .html or .php, however, redirect normally. For a page followed by parameters, like /about-us.html?source=newsletter, remove the part that starts with "?": the redirect also applies to these variants.

A redirect leads to a published page of your app: the page must exist before its redirect.

For your main pages, give your sections the address of your old pages: a section whose address is /contact answers the old addresses /contact and /contact/ directly, with no redirect. A section's address is set in its slug: see Configure URL rewriting and slugs. Your articles, on the other hand, are bound to change address. In your app, a content item has an address like /blog/i/48213/my-article: each article will need its own line in the file.

For a small website, rebuild your content by hand. For an archive of several hundred articles, you can hand this work to the AI assistant you already use (Claude, ChatGPT…), connected to the GoodBarber MCP server: it creates each article in your CMS with its title, its author and its original date. You stay in control: review what it has created before publishing. Either way, create them in a CMS section: content pulled from a feed (RSS or connector) names your old website as the original, and Google would credit that website rather than your app.

Then publish your app: Publish > PWA > Publish the first time, Update afterwards. The published version is the reference: a page created or renamed since the last publication is refused as a destination, with the message "Destination not found. If you just created this page or changed its address, publish your app first."

Your redirects change nothing online until you publish. Publish from Publish > PWA > Update: they apply within the next few minutes. Wait for an import to finish before publishing, because an import in progress doesn't go online.

Test before you switch. As long as your domain isn't connected, your PWA answers at its default address, which looks like https://projectname.goodbarber.app. Open a private browsing window and add the path of an old page to that address, for example https://projectname.goodbarber.app/2019/05/my-article/: the new page should open.

Then connect your domain from Publish > PWA > Domain name, following Connect your custom domain to your GoodBarber app. Order matters: published before the switch, your redirects answer from the very first visit on your domain. Four precautions:

• Your subscription. Subscribe before you point your domain: at the end of the free trial, an app with no subscription is deactivated, and your domain would no longer show your website.
• Your emails. If they use this domain, choose the CNAME configuration, which leaves them with your current provider.
• The delay. The change can take up to 72 hours to take effect: keep your old website online in the meantime.
• Your old account. If you bought this domain from Wix, Squarespace or Shopify, transfer it or change its configuration before closing your account, and keep a backup of your old website.

Once your domain is connected, run the test again with a full old address, still in private browsing: the right page of your app should open, with its new address in the address bar. Private browsing keeps you from seeing a page your browser kept in memory. To see the 301 code itself, use an online redirect checker.

In the following weeks, keep an eye on the Pages report in Google Search Console: the addresses reported as "Not found (404)" are the ones that don't have a redirect yet. Add the ones that matter. On a large screen, the list of your redirects also shows when each one was Last used: you can see which ones are still in use.

Your Search Console property stays the same, since your domain doesn't change. If you had verified it with a tag or a file placed on your old website, verify it again: the Sitemap tab of Publish > PWA > SEO takes the tag Google gives you. In the same tab, activate your PWA's sitemap, deactivated by default, then submit it to Google to help it discover your new pages. For Bing and the other search engines that use it, IndexNow tells them about your new pages faster. For a large archive, note that the sitemap lists the 100 most recently modified content items of each section (November 2026): Google will find the others through your redirects and your internal links.

Also fix the links you control: the ones from one content item of your app to another, your bio on social networks, your email signature. A direct link always beats a redirected one, and Google recommends updating internal links after a site move.

Keep your redirects for as long as possible, and at least a year: that is what Google recommends, to give it time to carry over to your new addresses what it knew about the old ones.

WordPress. List your addresses with /wp-sitemap.xml, add the ones the Redirection plugin already redirects, and spot the /?p=123 addresses early: they can't be redirected. A regular-expression rule becomes one line per address. A WooCommerce store goes through GoodBarber eCommerce: by default, its /product/product-name/ pages become /products/product-name, with one line each.

Shopify. Your product pages have an address like /products/product-name, as in a GoodBarber eCommerce app. Reuse that name as the product's slug, in the product_url_slug column of the catalog CSV import (Product Import/Export extension) or in the product's SEO tab: the page then answers its old address, with no redirect. Your collections, pages and blog posts, on the other hand, need one line each.

Wix. By default, your blog posts have an address like /post/post-title: each one needs its own line. For a website of twenty or so pages, add your redirects one by one, without a file.

Squarespace. Files hosted under /s/ can't be redirected. Your existing URL mappings (/old -> /new 301) give you old addresses to add to your list. A rule with a variable, like /blog/[name], becomes one line per address.

Other platforms (Webflow, Jimdo, Weebly, Blogger…): the general method is enough, with the sitemap and a spreadsheet.

A redirect serves your migration. For an address you print on a flyer or in a QR code, like /promo, create a custom address in the URL rewriting tab instead: it always takes priority over a redirect. The steps are in Configure URL rewriting and slugs.

Will I lose my search rankings?

Redirects keep you from losing what can be kept: each address that matters leads to its new page, and Google replaces the old one with the new one. Google does warn, however, that a site move with address changes can make rankings fluctuate for a while, and that it generally takes a few weeks for most pages of a small to medium-sized website to move.

How many redirects can I create?

Up to 10,000 per app (November 2026), including those not published yet. An import file is limited to 10,000 lines as well.

Do redirects work in the iOS and Android apps?

No. They apply to the web version of your app, the one Google indexes. In your native apps, an old link left in a content item may lead nowhere: fix the links in your content after the migration, as step 6 explains.

Can I redirect an address to another website?

Yes. Choose External link as the destination, or put the full address in the second column of the file.

What happens if I import the same file twice?

Nothing is changed: each address already in your list goes to Already in your list. To replace the whole list, click Delete all, import the new file, then publish.

Do I need hosting for the PWA?

No. PWA hosting is included in your GoodBarber subscription.

Create your app with the free trial, rebuild a first section, publish your PWA, then import a file of a few lines: the summary shows you, line by line, what goes through and why. The same project also produces your native iOS and Android apps, from the Premium plan.

Create your app

• Google Search Central: site moves with URL changes
• Google Search Central: redirects and Google Search
• GoodBarber Help: Configure 301 redirects from your old website to your PWA
• GoodBarber Help: Configure a CNAME record for your custom domain
• WordPress: native XML sitemaps, since version 5.5
• Redirection (WordPress plugin): import and export redirects
• Wix: blog post web addresses
• Squarespace: URL mappings