Moving an Online Store from Horoshop to Seo-Gen CMS
Horoshop is a strong Ukrainian platform for online stores, and many owners have sold on it for years without much trouble. Moving an online store from Horoshop to Seo-Gen CMS makes sense for those who have outgrown a ready-made platform and want more freedom with design, email, newsletters and SEO.
When does it make sense for a Horoshop store to move?
Seo-Gen CMS has no automatic import from Horoshop, so the Seo-Gen team moves the store manually under an agreed estimate. While we build the new site, the Horoshop storefront stays open and keeps taking orders, and the list of what we move and any acceptable differences from the original go into the estimate in advance.
A move away from Horoshop is justified when the store has outgrown the tasks the platform was originally chosen for and new needs have to be solved around it. Store owners most often give us these reasons to change the platform:
- a custom design, carried over from a mockup or the old site one to one;
- domain email that works inside the same system as the website;
- newsletters to subscribers with delivery, open and click statistics;
- leads and notifications delivered to the site's own Telegram bot;
- several websites that the business wants to manage from one login;
- meta tags, the canonical URL, hreflang, 301 and structured data as settings of the core itself.
If two or three points match, the store probably needs a Horoshop alternative, and the move is at least worth calculating. Seo-Gen CMS covers all six tasks in one system, and the store needs no third-party modules for them.
Horoshop suits a store that is happy with ready-made templates, the platform's built-in integrations and a single storefront. If the current plan covers the store's tasks, we will say so during the audit: moving away from Horoshop is not needed yet, and the money is better spent on promotion.
What does a Horoshop migration include?
The store is moved manually: the Seo-Gen team collects data from Horoshop exports, from the pages of the live site and from the admin panel. The scope below fits most stores, and we mark special cases separately in the estimate.
| What we move | How it looks in Seo-Gen CMS |
|---|---|
| Products | Product cards with name, description, price, SKU, brand and availability |
| Categories | The same catalog structure and section nesting |
| Attributes and variants | Product parameters and variants on the card, set and format agreed at the audit |
| Images | Photos in the media library and a product gallery with zoom |
| Texts | Category descriptions, blog posts and information pages |
| URLs and 301 | Old URLs kept where possible, the rest through 301 redirects |
| Meta tags | Title, Description and H1 for every page and language |
| Orders and customers | Order history and customer base, scope and format set by the audit |
Seo-Gen CMS gives the store a cart, checkout and online payment, orders arrive and get processed in the admin panel, and we configure all of it while moving the store. The manager learns about a new order from an email and a Telegram message, and search engines see Product and Offer markup in the code of product cards.
When moving a store from Horoshop, I first export all category and product URLs that are in the index and check them against the redirect map. The URLs that get lost most often belong to old products taken off sale, even though backlinks and shoppers' bookmarks still lead to them. After launch I go through this list manually and check the response code, Title and canonical of every important page.
How does the move from Horoshop to Seo-Gen CMS work?
The work goes step by step, and after each step the client sees the result with their own eyes and approves it. The Horoshop store keeps working and taking orders the whole time, so it is worth keeping the platform subscription until the day the domain is switched.
We name the timeline after the audit together with the estimate, since it depends on how many products, languages and design details the store has. Changing the Horoshop platform to Seo-Gen CMS ends with a domain switch, guided by a DNS setup assistant, and an HTTPS certificate issued automatically.
Store audit and estimate
First we study the whole store: catalog, attributes, page templates, blog, forms, language versions and SEO settings. We export the full list of URLs with meta tags right away and flag the pages that receive orders from search and external links.
The estimate that follows the audit splits the work into three parts: what we repeat one to one, which blocks we rebuild in the editor and where differences from the original are acceptable. The migration is paid once under this estimate, and the Seo-Gen CMS subscription is billed separately under the chosen plan.
Catalog export and transfer
The store owner, or we with their access, run the Horoshop product export, and our specialists create categories and product cards from these files. We upload images to the media library and check prices, SKUs, brands and availability against the live store item by item.
Products are moved from Horoshop in batches, and we check each batch on a sample of cards before starting the next one. This way file errors, missing photos or mixed-up categories are found at once and do not spread further across a large catalog.
How to export the catalog from Horoshop?
Horoshop product export is done in the Products section: the Export button generates an extended Excel file, as described in the platform's help center. The file contains the main attributes, variant attributes, SKUs and names, and you can export the whole catalog or a filtered part.
General attributes from the product template are not included in the extended file, and Horoshop has a separate attribute export for them. We merge both files into one table and use it to fill in product parameters on the Seo-Gen CMS cards.
Customers, orders and data from the site pages
Horoshop exports customers to XLSX and orders to Excel, and the order history together with the customer base can be moved to Seo-Gen CMS. Which fields come over and how they will look is settled during the audit and fixed in the estimate, so save the source files before your Horoshop plan runs out.
The export documentation says nothing about images, page texts, meta tags or URLs, so our specialists collect them manually from the pages of the live site and from the admin panel. For a preliminary estimate, access to the store's admin panel or a single product export file is usually enough.
Design 1:1 and texts
We reproduce the store's look one to one in the block editor: header, footer, product cards, categories, fonts, colors and the mobile version. The header, footer and 404 page sit in global zones, so the phone number in the header is edited once for the whole store.
Category texts, blog posts and information pages are moved without rewriting, with their original headings and internal links. If the store works in several languages, each language version gets its own separate texts and meta tags in that language.
URLs, 301 and pre-launch check
For every old URL the map lists a new one: where the structure allows, the URL stays the same, and other pages get a 301 redirect. A correct 301 redirect during the move passes accumulated weight to the new pages and does not send shoppers from old bookmarks to a 404 error.
We carry over Title, Description and H1 for each page and language, and the system itself sets the canonical URL and one URL format with a trailing slash. Before the domain switch we compare the new store with the original page by page, and the sitemap, robots and Schema.org are configured right in the admin panel.
What we actually did
Dental clinic · Kyiv and Chernihiv
+44% clicks from search
A domain with no history and a site on a website builder. We built the semantic core for both cities, reworked the landing pages and built the link profile from zero. In four months: 34.8k clicks, impressions 1.32 → 1.76M, DR 0 → 41.
E-commerce · international
+96% clicks in two months
A catalog of digital 3D models. We clustered the semantics, rebuilt the hub pages and fixed duplicates and indexing errors. Google users 247 → 532, CTR 2.4% → 4%.
Medical center · Ukraine
+68.75% visibility in the first month
Narrow visibility and a small semantic core at the start. Semantics, landing page structure, metadata and internal linking, then gradual link building.
How much does it cost to migrate a site from Horoshop?
A one-to-one Horoshop store migration starts at UAH 25,000, with the exact sum written into the estimate once the catalog has been reviewed. The price of migrating a site from Horoshop is fixed in the estimate and depends on several things we assess on the real store:
- the number of products, categories and attributes in the catalog;
- design complexity and the number of unique page templates;
- the number of language versions and the volume of blog texts;
- the size of the URL map and 301 redirects.
The system subscription is paid separately under a plan from the table above and is not part of the migration estimate. Extra work beyond the estimate costs UAH 600 per hour, and if the store is easier to rebuild on a Seo-Gen template, we will say so during the assessment.
Thinking about a Horoshop migration? Send us your store URL, and we will run an audit and tell you honestly whether the move is worth it.
Payment models: Horoshop and Seo-Gen CMS
Horoshop and Seo-Gen CMS charge in different ways, so comparing them by the size of the monthly fee alone would be misleading. Horoshop sells store plans, while Seo-Gen CMS sells a per-site subscription plus a one-time migration.
With annual billing Seo-Gen CMS gives a 20% discount, though it does not apply to one-time work, including the store migration itself. Every plan already includes hosting, backups, security updates, site monitoring and support, and system updates come at no extra charge.
| Platform and plan | How you pay |
|---|---|
| Horoshop | A store plan, billed monthly or a year ahead |
| Seo-Gen CMS Start | from UAH 990 per month per site |
| Seo-Gen CMS Business | from UAH 1,900 per month per site |
| Seo-Gen CMS Platform | from UAH 4,500 per month for 5 sites, UAH 700 for each extra site |
| Migration to Seo-Gen CMS | One-time, from UAH 25,000 per estimate |
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Answers to your questions
Can a Horoshop store be migrated automatically?
Seo-Gen CMS has no automatic import from Horoshop, and the system can automatically pull in only WordPress sites. To migrate from Horoshop, the Seo-Gen team manually creates products, categories, pages and redirects.
Manual work takes longer, but every product card and every URL is checked by a specialist before launch. We write the scope of work into the estimate and agree it with you before the first migration step.
Will rankings survive the move from Horoshop?
A Horoshop migration changes the platform under the store's URLs, so search engines recrawl the categories and product cards, and short ranking fluctuations are possible. Keeping SEO intact relies on a complete map of old URLs, 301 redirects and transferred meta tags.
For the first few weeks we keep an eye on indexing and give extra attention to the categories and products that used to bring orders from search. When an old address sends shoppers somewhere unexpected, we trace it through the map and correct its 301 rule in the Seo-Gen CMS admin.
Do I need to close the Horoshop store during the migration?
Closing the store is unnecessary: it stays open for orders while we build and test the new site. It is worth extending the Horoshop subscription until the domain switch day so that shoppers never see an empty storefront.
We pick the switch date together with the owner, steering clear of sales, the busy season and the start of ad campaigns. Right after the switch, old URLs lead via 301 to the same products and categories of the store.
Can I run several stores from one login?
Yes, on the Platform plan from UAH 4,500 per month five sites run in one installation, and each extra one costs UAH 700. Every store gets its own domain, languages, design, email, forms and data, and a staff member can be given access to one site while the others stay closed.
This setup is handy when a business has stores for different brands or separate sites for wholesale and retail. The owner sees a summary of all sites in the network in one admin panel, without separate logins.
Who owns the store data after the move?
The store data remains with its owner, just like the files they used to export from Horoshop. In Seo-Gen CMS you can request an export of texts, URLs, images, meta tags, redirects and form submissions at any time free of charge.
Texts come in Markdown or HTML, URLs and structure in JSON or CSV, and images in the format they were uploaded in. If the contract ends, the owner receives a final export and takes all the site content with them.
Moving an online store from Horoshop makes sense when the store needs its own design, domain email, newsletters, a Telegram bot, several sites from one login or SEO in the core. If the current Horoshop plan already covers the store's tasks, it is too early to move yet.
The Seo-Gen team moves the store manually under an estimate from UAH 25,000: catalog, texts, design 1:1 and URLs with 301 redirects. Until the domain switch, shoppers keep ordering on Horoshop, so the move goes unnoticed for them.
We reply within one business day. No newsletters, no “just a reminder” calls.
He will look at the site himself instead of passing it to a manager.