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Transferring a WordPress site to a new host can be a daunting proposition. However, businesses frequently find that as their site grows, its current host can no longer provide the scalability, performance, or support it needs. In those circumstances, migration is the best option for the site and business.
There’s no denying that moving a site comes with real risks, especially if it’s done in haste. One of the biggest causes for concern is search engine optimization (SEO). If WordPress migration is not done carefully, there’s a chance your site will lose visibility in search engines and AI apps.
Search engines rely on stable web addresses, clear site structure, and consistent content to figure out what your site is about and how to rank it. When you transfer to a different host, these details can change, which may confuse search engines so they send less traffic your way.
In this article, we’re going to explore what you can do to prepare for and carry out a WordPress site migration while minimizing the risk of ranking drops and traffic losses.
Before we get to the SEO migration checklist, it’s useful to have an understanding of what can go wrong when you transfer a site to a new hosting provider. If you intend to keep the same domain name and site structure, there are generally fewer SEO risks than if you change the domain and page URLs. But both cases can lead to a drop in site search performance if they aren’t handled properly.
Here are the main causes for lost search visibility during a migration:
A successful migration depends on planning and preparation. You should expect to spend some time gathering information and preparing your site before you move any data. Here are the most important steps to take in the run-up to migration day.
Always make a complete copy of your WordPress site’s files and database before performing a migration. The backup is your main safety net if anything goes wrong. You will appreciate being able to quickly roll back to a known good state instead of having to manually unpick your work.
Before you move, you need a clear picture of your current SEO performance. Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to record details like your current organic traffic, what keywords your site ranks for, and your best-performing pages. Also, note any existing crawl errors. You will use this information as a benchmark for identifying errors and regressions after the migration.
Use a site crawling tool like Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Semrush Audit to scan your website. Get a list of all the current URLs. Keep an eye out for any broken links, crawl errors, or duplicate content, and take note of your current page titles and descriptions. The idea is to have a comprehensive list of everything on your site to compare with the site’s post-migration state.
If you’re changing domains or you intend to move pages to different URLs, create a detailed list that matches every old page address to its new address. Depending on the type of migration you’re doing, you may need to create redirects, and having a comprehensive list in advance will allow you to implement these quickly. Redirects ensure each page keeps its search value when its URL changes.
Do a full test run of your migration on a private staging site. A premium managed WordPress hosting provider makes creating a staging site straightforward. However, you may need to use a plugin like WP Staging or Duplicator if your hosting provider doesn’t support staging.
Test all of your site’s features and links, how fast pages load, and whether the content looks as you would expect. You want to catch any errors before you do the move for real.
This is the point where your website actually moves from its old home to the new one. There are a few ways to do it, but the goal is always to ensure that your WordPress site’s database and files are transferred intact and without corruption.
Whichever method you choose, it’s important to maintain data integrity. Make sure every file, image, post, and database entry is moved. If something goes wrong, it will eventually show up as an error on your site.
Once your site is on the new server, the next task is to set up redirects if you’ve changed domain names or individual page URLs. A 301 redirect tells browsers and search engines that a page has moved permanently to a new location. 301 redirects pass most of the “link equity” from the old URL to the new one.
If you followed our preparation guide, you’ll already have a list of redirects ready to implement.
The easiest way to redirect visitors to your new site is with a plugin like Redirection or Simple 301 Redirects. These will let you upload a list of URLs and specify where you want to redirect them. They’ll also help you implement bulk redirects based on regular expressions.
You’ll find similar functionality in some of the leading SEO plugins, including All-in-One SEO, Yoast SEO, and Rank Math.
A typo in the URL of a high-traffic page can cause significant SEO damage, so testing should be a priority. The most straightforward way to test redirects is to manually visit a selection of pages from your redirect map. Make sure they lead to the new URL and display a 301 status code. You can check the status code with your browser’s developer tools.
A more comprehensive option is to use a site crawling tool like Screaming Frog SEO Spider to crawl your old site. It’ll follow the redirects and report the status codes. You’ll be able to identify any missing or incorrect redirects as well as redirect chains, which cause the browser to go through multiple hops before reaching the destination.
Finally, you can use Google Search Console’s Crawl Stats and Pages reports, which will eventually show if Google is encountering errors or pages aren’t redirecting as expected.
If you have changed your domain name or significantly altered your site’s URL structure, you will have to perform a search and replace operation on the WordPress database. WordPress stores many of its URLs as absolute paths in database tables, including URLs for images, internal links, and theme and plugin settings.
All of these need to be changed, or users will experience broken links, missing images, and mixed content warnings. Outdated links will also stop search engine crawlers from fully understanding your new site structure.
Tools like Better Search Replace are popular for safely updating URLs from within WordPress. For Pressable users, we provide a built-in search and replace tool that works safely with the WordPress database.
Once your WordPress site is successfully transferred and redirects are in place, you need to send internet traffic to its new location. That means updating your Domain Name System (DNS) records.
DNS records tell the internet where your website lives. The process of editing DNS records differs depending on your setup. But it usually involves logging into your domain registrar and telling them to use your new hosting provider’s nameservers, as explained in our guide to configuring your nameservers for Pressable.
Then, you can use the hosting provider’s DNS admin interface to update the DNS records. Typically, this means changing the “A” record (which points your domain name to your hosting server’s IP address) and potentially “CNAME” records. DNS changes can take from a few minutes to a few hours to fully propagate across the internet.
Alternatively, you may choose to use your domain registrar or a third-party provider’s nameservers. In that case, you’ll have to log in to their admin interface to set up your DNS records.
Next, you need to ensure your SSL certificate is correctly installed and configured on the new server. The best WordPress hosting providers offer free SSL certificates and take care of the installation and configuration for you as part of their setup process.
After DNS propagation, visit your site and confirm that your browser recognizes the connection as secure. It will let you know if there’s a problem. Also, ensure all internal links and media load via HTTPS to avoid mixed content warnings.
After your site is live and accessible, you need to communicate these changes to search engines. Your WordPress site and most SEO plugins can automatically generate an XML sitemap. Ensure the sitemap is up-to-date and reflects the URLs of your new site.
Log in to your GSC account. If you moved to a new domain, you’ll need to add it as a new “property” and verify ownership. Then, go to the “Sitemaps” section and submit the URL of your new XML sitemap. This will tell Google what pages are on your site and where to find them.
Other search engine providers, such as Bing Webmaster Tools, have a similar process for updating sitemaps.
If you migrated your WordPress site to a new domain name, you should let Google know. Within your old domain’s property in Google Search Console, use the “Change of Address” tool. Informing Google will help ranking signals transfer from the old domain to the new one. You must have 301 redirects in place before you inform Google of the change.
If you changed domain names, your existing Google Analytics tracking might stop working or collect data incorrectly. Log in to your Google Analytics account, go to “Admin,” and navigate to your “Data Streams.” Update your website’s URL to reflect the new domain name. Ensure the Google Analytics tracking code is correctly installed on every page of your new WordPress site to ensure continuous and accurate data collection.
As soon as your new site goes live, conduct thorough testing to catch and fix problems before they impact your SEO. Perform another comprehensive site crawl. Compare this crawl to your pre-migration crawl results. Look for:
It’s not unusual to find some or all of these problems on a newly migrated site. Your priority should be to identify and remediate any issues as soon as possible. Eventually, Google will get around to crawling the site, and any errors still present may impact indexing and ranking.
Once you’ve dealt with any immediately identified issues, your WordPress migration is essentially complete. However, it’s important to keep an eye on SEO performance over the next few months. You may see changes in SEO performance that are related to the migration issues that weren’t immediately apparent.
Here are some of the key areas to keep an eye on in Google Analytics:
You should also monitor Google Search Console for unexpected changes.
It’s important to act promptly if you notice any significant drops in traffic and rankings or increases in errors. You should expect some minor variations following a site migration, but a quick response to substantial changes can minimize the long-term impact of any post-migration issues.
As you can see, there’s a lot of work involved in migrating a website to a better WordPress hosting provider. At Pressable, we’re committed to making that process as easy as possible for our customers. That’s why we provide unlimited free site migrations carried out by WordPress experts.
We’ll handle the technical heavy lifting so that you can focus on your site’s content and user experience. Request a demo to learn more about Pressable managed WordPress hosting.
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