Website migration SEO checklist for WordPress

Before conversion: record the current site

Keep a list of important URLs, page titles, descriptions, headings and canonical URLs. Include articles, collection items, images that earn traffic and landing pages used by campaigns. Export the search and analytics data you already use so that you can compare the same pages after launch.

Identify your critical journeys: finding a service, contacting the business, booking or buying. Search traffic is only useful if those journeys still work. Have a named owner for checking each journey and deciding whether the new site is ready.

• Save an inventory of pages and collection items.
• Identify important inbound links and campaign destinations.
• Back up the source site and the new WordPress database.
• Agree a launch window, rollback plan and content freeze.

Prepare a URL map

For each old URL, record the intended destination and whether it stays the same. If a path has to change, check that the destination is a real, relevant page. Avoid redirecting unrelated pages to the homepage just to remove errors.

Google recommends permanent server-side redirects for URL changes and avoiding redirect chains. Search visibility can fluctuate while a move is processed; a redirect is not a promise of unchanged rankings.

Reference: Google: site moves with URL changes

Review content and page signals

Inspect the WordPress output rather than relying only on the converter’s completion status. Compare key page content, titles, descriptions, headings, image descriptions and social previews. A changed template can accidentally hide an article body, repeat a title or remove a useful internal link.

Check canonical URLs against the intended live domain. Preview URLs and staging hostnames should not become the permanent references in metadata, menus or article links. If your site includes extra search information such as product details or article dates, check that it still matches the visible page.

At launch: test the live domain

Once the domain points to WordPress, check it as a logged-out visitor. Test the homepage, an ordinary page, an archive, an item page and a deliberately missing path. Follow a few old links through to their final destinations and inspect the actual response codes.

Check HTTPS, navigation, mobile layout and essential submissions. Confirm that temporary staging restrictions are not preventing access to the intended public pages. Keep a rollback decision separate from small cosmetic fixes: broken contact forms or missing commercial pages deserve immediate attention.

After launch: compare and investigate

Review the new sitemap, inspect important pages in Search Console and monitor crawl errors and page-level traffic. Use the baseline to distinguish an actual missing page from a reporting delay or a general demand change. Record issues and the fixes applied so that you can explain changes later.

AnythingTo aims to carry page metadata and paths across, but every migration still needs this review. If any content is missing, bring it across before considering the move complete. Keep the old inventory even after launch: it remains useful when someone reports a broken bookmarked URL.