Does a store transfer to a different country impact SEO?

Technical Q&A
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1

If a store is sold / transferred to another new owner in a different country, does anything change on the front end or server-side which tells Google it’s moved country?

By that I mean does Shopify change anything, not the store owner, as for the sake of this example nothing is changed on the website (URL’s, content etc)

I believe it’s just the account owner name & payment gateway which would change, according to Shopify support.

However, I wonder if there’s any signals given to Google which indicates a move of country with regards the owner.

If so, it could affect SEO if the store has good rankings in its first country.

This might not be the case at all though. I suspect that with websites changing hands all the time this isn’t something Google would keep track of (or even could).

??

2

Hi @dbw-775

The only time the SEO is affected with a change of ownership is under the following circumstances:

  • The domain name changes without informing Google.
  • The product titles change without proper redirects setup.
  • Any other pages of the website change without redirects.
  • The content of the web pages changes significantly.

I highly recommend you read Google’s official documentation for more information: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide

If you require further expert advice I also recommend to hire an official Shopify Partner like myself to clarify things. All the best with your website transfer.