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Importing redirects
Importing redirects
Niels van Vlerken avatar
Written by Niels van Vlerken
Updated over a week ago

Redirects are an important step in migrating from your previous web platform to Lightspeed eCom, but not the only one. It is recommended that you speak to an SEO expert for more information.

The Import tool provides a faster method of creating redirects, compared to entering them manually. You can use the Import tool to import new redirects already prepared in a table. You can also use the Import tool to update the redirects already in Lightspeed eCom.

For more information about redirects and entering them manually, click here.

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This article is divided into two parts:

  • Instructions - Contain step-by-step instructions.

  • Reference - Contains reference material.

Instructions

Importing new redirects

A successful import depends on the quality of your data. That's why most of the steps you need to follow when importing to eCom revolve around your worksheet. For more information about the importance of a worksheet, click here.

Follow these steps to import new redirects:

  1. Preparing your worksheet

  2. Import your worksheet

  3. Verification of your import

Prepare your worksheet

Follow these steps to create your spreadsheet, add the landing pages from your previous platform, and adapt them to the new pages in Lightspeed eCom.

It's recommended that you only redirect your popular landing pages or those that rank high in search results. For more information on creating essential redirects only, click here.

Import your data file

Now that you have prepared your data file and saved it to your computer, you can now upload the file to eCom via the Import tool.

  1. Log in to your eCom store's back office and click Tools.

  2. Click on New Import.

  3. Click Browse computer.

  4. Find your worksheet and click Open.

  5. Click What do you want to import? and select Redirects.

  6. The page will continue automatically.

  7. The fields in the SELECT FIELDS section are automatically mapped to the correct fields as long as the column headings have not been changed in your worksheet. If some columns are not mapped, click here to find the correct matches. Click Continue in the top right corner of the screen.

  8. Click Start the import. The Import tool will start processing the import. You don't have to stay on the page and can come back to it later.

Verify your changes

It is necessary to check if your edits were successful after starting an import. After checking the Import tool for errors, it is important to randomly test a number of clients from your worksheet and confirm whether your edits have taken place.

  1. Confirm that no errors occurred during the import:

  2. Log in to your eCom store's back office and click Tools.

  3. Find your import by date or file name and click on View report next to the status.
    If errors are visible, correct your worksheet and re-import your edits. To see frequently asked questions and ask your own questions about errors, visit the Lightspeed Community article here.

Confirm if the edits have taken place

  1. In Google Sheets, open the sheet you uploaded on Lightspeed eCom.

  2. Select any row and note the target.
    In these instructions, we note the hardware/discounts target.

  3. Log in to your eCom store's back office and select Settings.

  4. In the Website Settings column, click Redirects.

  5. Sort the table by the Target column by clicking the Target column header.

  6. Find the target URL. You may need to change the pages depending on the number of Redirects. Compare the Redirect in eCom with your worksheet to make sure the changes you made are reflected correctly.

  7. Repeat steps 1-7 for a few customers until you are sure that all your changes have been imported correctly.

Import edits from redirects

Follow these steps to import edits to redirects:

  1. Create a data backup

  2. Preparing your worksheet

  3. Import your worksheet

  4. Verification of your import

Create a data backup

To start editing your redirects and importing changes, make a data backup of the current redirect data you have in Lightspeed eCom. If you have diverted data from another platform, please make a secure backup.

  1. In the left menu of the back office, click on Tools.

  2. Click on Exports.

  3. In the top right corner of the page, click New Export.

  4. Next to Choose what to export, click on Products to view the drop-down list.

  5. Click on Redirects.

  6. Click on Export.

  7. Look in the Status column if the status is PROCESSING . When the status changes to READY , processing is complete. Click Download on the right side of the screen.

  8. Find a location on your computer that is easy to find and click Save.

Prepare your worksheet

To edit redirects, these steps instruct you to create a new table that will become your worksheet.

Import your data file

Now that you have prepared your data file and saved it to your computer, you can now upload the file to eCom via the Import tool.

  1. Log in to your eCom store's back office and click Tools.

  2. Click on New Import.

  3. Click Browse computer.

  4. Find your worksheet and click Open.

  5. Click What do you want to import? and select Redirects.

  6. The page will continue automatically.

  7. The fields in the SELECT FIELDS section are automatically mapped to the correct fields as long as the column headings have not been changed in your worksheet. If some columns are not mapped, click here to find the correct matches. Click Continue in the top right corner of the screen.

  8. Click Start the import. The Import tool will start processing the import. You don't have to stay on the page and can come back to it later.

Verify your changes

It is necessary to check if your edits were successful after starting an import. After checking the Import tool for errors, it is important to randomly test a number of clients from your worksheet and confirm whether your edits have taken place.

Confirm that no errors occurred during the import:

  1. Log in to your eCom store's back office and click Tools.

  2. Find your import by date or file name and click on View report next to the status.

  3. If errors are visible, correct your worksheet and re-import your edits. To see frequently asked questions and ask your own questions about errors, visit the Lightspeed Community article here.

Confirm if the edits have taken place

  1. In Google Sheets, open the sheet you uploaded on Lightspeed eCom.

  2. Select any row and note the target.
    In these instructions, we note the hardware/discounts target.

  3. Log in to your eCom store's back office and select Settings.

  4. In the Website Settings column, click Redirects.

  5. Sort the table by the Target column by clicking the Target column header.

  6. Find the target URL. You may need to change the pages depending on the number of Redirects. Compare the Redirect in eCom with your worksheet to make sure the changes you made are reflected correctly.

  7. Repeat steps 1-7 for a few customers until you are sure that all your changes have been imported correctly.

Reference

Review the following information to help you import redirects:

Building your table with essential redirects

Before moving to a new platform on the same domain, it is not necessary to create a redirect for all your pages. Instead, create redirects for the page if it's a popular landing page or a page that ranks high in search results.

If you don't create a redirect, the traffic will be directed to the homepage of your new website instead of the intended destination. This can increase the percentage of traffic that navigates away from your website because the destination was not found.

To know which web pages are essential to redirect, it is recommended to use data from Google Analytics. You can determine whether a page is essential if the landing page sessions occur regularly over a certain time frame. For example, after exporting a list of landing page sessions from the past year, you'll find:

  • 100 sessions for your shoe category

  • 10 sessions for your boots category

  • 1 session for your hat category

In this example, depending on your business and the time you have to create redirects, it is your decision to create one, two or three redirects for these categories.

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