ProPlayerTeam Case Study: Migrating 2,600+ URLs to Shopify and Doubling Organic Clicks in Two Months
ProPlayerTeam supplies team uniform packages to US schools, clubs and leagues. Its WordPress site had outgrown the platform. We planned and ran the SEO side of its move to Shopify, then rebuilt the thin and PDF-based content that had held it back. Two months after launch, organic clicks were up 104%.
TL;DR: A platform migration is where most sites lose traffic. We mapped every URL that mattered, kept the new Shopify store hidden from Google until launch, tested redirects before and after go-live, and fixed issues within days. Clicks dipped briefly after launch, then recovered and passed pre-migration levels, up 104% in two months. The migration also cleared the way for fixes WordPress had blocked: HTML product pages instead of PDFs, fuller category copy and brand collections.
The Client and the Challenge
ProPlayerTeam is the team sales division of ProPlayerSupply and a sister brand of BigLeagueShirts. It sells team uniform packages, practice apparel, bags, helmets and accessories from brands such as Adidas, Rawlings and Champion.
What our August 2025 audit found
- High-volume searches ranked far off page one: "baseball bag" (7,300 searches a month) at position 61, "baseball helmet" (7,000) at 28, "custom football jerseys" (5,000) at 49 and "volleyball uniforms" (4,600) at 45.
- 79 pages had fewer than 150 words, and some categories had as few as 5.
- Many catalogues and product details existed only as PDFs, which are hard to browse and weak for search.
- 114 pages had title tags that were too short or too long, and many top pages had click-through rates under 2%.
- The site was slow on mobile, and WordPress was struggling after more than 2,000 products were added.
Source: Rankdough SEO, CRO and design assessment of proplayerteam.com, August 2025.
What We Did for ProPlayerTeam
Four phases, from strategy to post-launch growth. Every task was tracked on a shared project board with the client and its developer.
Strategy, keyword research and the migration decision
Full keyword research focused on brands and team packages, a technical analysis, a menu structure review against larger team sports retailers, and a written migration plan with best, mid and worst-case scenarios, KPIs and an emergency rollback.
Building the new store safely
The Shopify store was built on a subdomain and kept noindexed until launch. We exported every product and category from WordPress, chose the new collections from Ahrefs data, carried over meta titles and category copy, set schema, sitemap and robots to Shopify defaults, and disavowed bad links.
Redirects, tracking and go-live checks
We mapped 2,663 old URLs, including 2,036 products, 300 paginated pages, around 200 categories and 126 pages that became collections. We tested redirects before launch, executed the 301s, fixed broken redirects straight after go-live, and moved GA4, Search Console, social links and a 404 report to the new site.
Content the old site could not support
We turned product PDFs into HTML pages, added 300 to 500 words to 79 thin pages, built Adidas, Rawlings and MiTeam brand collections, launched an FAQ hub with 195 answered sport questions, published 5 long-form articles, fixed 52 non-indexable URLs, improved page speed and reindexed the top queries lost in the move.
+104%
Organic Clicks Doubled in Two Months After Launch
Google Search Console shows the dip every migration risks: clicks fell in the first weeks after the April 2026 launch while Google processed the redirects. Within two months they had recovered and were up 104%, reaching the highest daily levels on the chart by June 2026.
| Platform | Responses | Pages |
|---|---|---|
| AI Overviews | 309+308 | 50+49 |
| AI Mode | 10+10 | 10+10 |
| ChatGPT | 32+24 | 19+13 |
| Gemini | 21+20 | 11+10 |
| Perplexity | 6−10 | 4−5 |
| Copilot | 18+16 | 10+8 |
| Grok | 0−1 | 0−1 |
+1,300%
AI Citations Up 1,300% in Six Months
Since the Shopify migration, ProPlayerTeam's AI citations rose from 29 to 406 in six months, across 92 pages. Most came from Google AI Overviews, which cited the site 309 times, up from 1, as the new HTML product and FAQ pages replaced PDFs.
Source: Ahrefs Site Explorer, AI responses, proplayerteam.com, all subdomains, 23 September 2026 compared with 23 March 2026. Responses are citations of the site in AI answers Ahrefs tracks; pages are distinct cited URLs.
Why the Migration Did Not Cost ProPlayerTeam Its Rankings
A plan with a rollback
The migration plan set KPIs for traffic, rankings, broken pages and organic sales, and defined an emergency fix: revert the redirects if something went wrong.
Hidden until ready
The new store stayed noindexed on a subdomain until launch day, so Google never saw a half-built duplicate of the site.
Every URL accounted for
Products, categories, paginated pages and content pages all had a mapped destination, tested before and after launch.
What We Are Doing Next
Post-launch work continues on the pages that sell. This work is in progress, and we will update this page with measured results.
Sport hubs
Hubs for baseball, football and basketball, with FAQs, cost tables, comparisons and internal links to the matching collections.
Collection copy and filters
SEO copy across the shop collections, cleaner filters and gender-based organisation of products.
Reviews and trust
A review collection programme for Google and on-site reviews, one of the trust signals missing from the old site.
What This Means for Your Brand
Plan the SEO before the build
URL structure, metadata and redirects decided early cost far less than fixing them after launch.
Expect a dip, plan the recovery
Rankings often move while Google processes a migration. Monitoring and fast fixes decide how short that dip is.
Use the move to fix old limits
A new platform is the moment to replace PDFs, expand thin pages and build the collections buyers search for.
Planning a platform move? See our SEO site migration services, or SEO for new website builds if you are starting from scratch.
ProPlayerTeam Case Study: Frequently Asked Questions
The key facts from this case study.
How much did ProPlayerTeam's organic traffic grow after migrating to Shopify?
Organic clicks were up 104% two months after the April 2026 launch, according to Google Search Console, after a short dip in the first weeks while Google processed the redirects.
What SEO work did Rankdough do for ProPlayerTeam's migration?
Keyword research, a migration plan with KPIs and a rollback, a 2,663-URL redirect map, metadata and category copy migration, a noindexed build until launch, redirect testing before and after go-live, and tracking migration.
How many URLs were redirected in the ProPlayerTeam migration?
We mapped 2,663 old URLs, including 2,036 product pages, 300 paginated pages, around 200 categories and 126 pages that became Shopify collections.
Why did ProPlayerTeam move from WordPress to Shopify?
After more than 2,000 products were added, WordPress was slowing the site down and limiting how products and collections could be built. Shopify gave better performance, cleaner checkout flows and room to scale.
What content improvements followed the migration?
Product PDFs became HTML pages, 79 thin pages gained 300 to 500 words each, brand collections were built for Adidas, Rawlings and MiTeam, and a new FAQ hub answered 195 sport questions.
Planning a Platform Migration?
Send us your site, your target platform and your launch date. The earlier we see your plans, the more rankings we can protect.