WordPress to WordPress Site Migration SOP

Crawl the Existing Live Website

Before any migration work begins, capture a full SEO baseline.

Actions:

  • Crawl the live site using: 
    • Screaming Frog / Sitebulb / Ahrefs Site Audit 
  • Export and store: 
    • Full URL list (indexable only) 
    • Status codes 
    • Canonical URLs 
    • Meta titles & meta descriptions 
    • H1–H6 headings 
    • Image URLs & alt attributes 
    • Internal linking structure 
    • Schema markup (if applicable) 

Deliverable:

  • “Live Site SEO Baseline” crawl export 

3.2 Identify High-Value Pages

Actions:

  • Pull top pages by: 
    • Organic traffic (GA / GSC) 
    • Backlinks (Ahrefs / SEMrush) 
    • Conversions or priority business pages 
  • Flag: 
    • Money pages 
    • Blog posts with backlinks 
    • Ranking landing pages 

Deliverable:

  • Priority URL list (to be double-checked post-migration) 

Content & Asset Migration (Manual)

Page & Post Migration

Actions:

  • Manually recreate: 
    • Pages 
    • Posts 
    • Custom Post Types 
  • Match: 
    • Page structure 
    • Headings hierarchy 
    • Content order 
    • Internal links 

SEO Requirements:

  • Preserve: 
    • Meta titles 
    • Meta descriptions 
    • Schema markup 
    • Featured images 
    • Categories and tags 

Media & Asset Migration

Actions:

  • Migrate: 
    • Images 
    • PDFs 
    • Videos 
    • Downloadable files 
  • Maintain: 
    • File names 
    • Image alt text 
    • Image compression standards 

Important:

  • Avoid changing media URLs unless unavoidable 

URL Structure Validation

URL Parity Check

Objective:
 Ensure URLs remain identical wherever possible.

Actions:

  • Compare: 
    • Live URL list vs staging URL list 
  • Confirm: 
    • Slugs 
    • Trailing slash behaviour 
    • Upper/lowercase consistency 
    • Query parameters 

Outcome:

  • Identify URLs that: 
    • Remain unchanged 
    • Have changed and require redirection 

Redirect Mapping & Implementation (Rank Math)

Redirect Mapping

Actions:

  • Create a redirect mapping spreadsheet: 
    • Old URL 
    • New URL 
    • Redirect type (301) 

Rules:

  • All changed URLs must have a 301 redirect 
  • No redirect chains 
  • No redirects to irrelevant pages 

Deliverable:

  • Approved redirect mapping document 

 

Implement Redirects in Rank Math

Actions:

  • In WordPress Admin: 
    • Rank Math → Redirections 
  • Add: 
    • Source URL (old) 
    • Destination URL (new) 
    • Type: 301 Permanent 
  • Enable redirect logging (if available) 

Validation:

  • Test redirects using: 
    • Browser 
    • Screaming Frog 
    • HTTP status checker 

On-Page SEO Validation (Staging)

Metadata Validation

Actions:

  • Confirm for all migrated pages: 
    • Meta titles match baseline 
    • Meta descriptions match baseline 
    • Canonical URLs are correct 

 

Internal Linking Check

Actions:

  • Crawl staging site 
  • Ensure: 
    • No internal links point to old URLs 
    • No broken links 
    • No redirected internal links 

Technical SEO Checks

Actions:

  • Verify: 
    • Indexation settings are correct (noindex still enabled) 
    • XML sitemap is generated but not submitted 
    • Schema markup renders correctly 
    • Page speed and Core Web Vitals are acceptable 

Pre-Launch SEO Checklist

Before going live:

  • Redirects implemented and tested 
  • No broken links 
  • No redirect chains 
  • Canonicals correct 
  • Staging noindex still active 
  • XML sitemap validated 
  • Robots.txt reviewed 

 

Go-Live SEO Actions

Remove Staging Restrictions

Actions:

Advise Joe the site is ready for launch after presenting to the client.

 

Submit to Search Engines

Actions:

  • Submit: 
    • New XML sitemap in Google Search Console 
  • Request: 
    • Re-indexing of priority pages 

Post-Migration SEO Monitoring

Immediate Checks (Day 0–2)

Actions:

  • Crawl live site 
  • Validate: 
    • 200 status codes 
    • Redirect functionality 
    • Canonicals 
    • Indexability