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How do I move off WordPress while protecting search visibility?

Last reviewed
2026-09-16

Inventory the site's URLs, content and functionality before rebuilding it. Preserve useful URLs where possible, redirect changed pages to relevant destinations, and check indexing, metadata and analytics after launch. Search performance can fluctuate during a move.

The longer version

Redirects matter when URLs change, but they are one part of migration. Content, internal links, canonical tags, crawl access, structured data and the new site's behavior also need review.

Review each plugin's actual function and decide what must be retained, replaced or retired. Combine crawl results, sitemaps, Search Console, analytics and other records to build the inventory; no one source is a complete list of every URL.

Next steps

  1. Inventory URLs, content, integrations and tracking.
  2. Define retained URLs and redirects for changed or removed pages.
  3. Test functionality, metadata, internal links and redirects before launch.
  4. Monitor crawling, indexing, traffic and errors after launch.

Sources

  1. Site moves with URL changes (opens in a new tab)Google Search Central

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