How to Move Off WordPress Without Losing Your Google Rankings

Summarize with AI

Most owners we talk to want off WordPress for the same reasons: plugin updates that break things, monthly fees for features that should be part of the site, and security notices they have no time to read. The question that stops them is always the same. What happens to our Google rankings?

A move can cost you rankings, and it doesn't have to. When traffic drops after a migration, the cause is almost always something that could have been caught before launch. Here is the order we follow so it gets caught.

Why rankings drop after a move

Google ranks pages, and it remembers them by their address. When a site changes platforms, three things tend to go wrong at once.

Fig. 01

Where rankings get lost

What goes wrong	What it looks like	What prevents it
Broken URLs	A page moves to a new address and the old one leads nowhere, taking its links and history with it.	One permanent redirect from every changed URL to its new page.
Lost page signals	Titles, descriptions, headings, image text and structured data never make it to the new pages.	Copy them over page by page from the inventory.
Crawl problems	A missing sitemap, a leftover noindex tag, a robots.txt that blocks too much, or copy that only appears after scripts run.	Technical checks before launch, then Search Console after.

All three are preventable, which is why the real work happens before the switch.

Step one: list every URL before anything changes

Start with an inventory of the site as it is today. Crawl it, read its sitemaps, and export the pages that bring in clicks from Google Search Console. Note which pages have links from other websites, because those links carry authority you want to keep.

This list becomes the map for everything after it. A page that is missing from the list is a page nobody will remember to redirect. Our free Migration Planner reads your robots.txt, sitemaps and homepage and gives you a starting list with a redirect map.

Try the Migration Planner

Step two: one decision for every old URL

Every address on the list gets one of three outcomes. Most should keep the exact same path, which needs no redirect at all. Pages whose address changes get a single permanent (301) redirect straight to the new page. Pages you are retiring redirect to the closest page that answers the same need.

Fig. 02

One decision per old URL

Every URL from the inventory

Same pathKeep itNo redirect needed.
New pathOne 301 to the new pageStraight there, never through a chain.
Retired301 to the closest matchA page that answers the same need.

Sending every retired page to the homepage throws away what each one earned.

Keep the map as a spreadsheet with the old URL, the new URL and the decision, and review every line before launch.

Two mistakes cost more than the rest. Redirect chains, where one old URL hops through two or three others, slow every visit and make the site harder to crawl. Pointing every retired page at the homepage is the other one: Google tends to treat those redirects as if the pages had simply disappeared.

Step three: carry over what Google reads

A new design changes how pages look. What search engines read should come across intact. For each page on the inventory, carry over:

The title tag and meta description
The H1 and the heading outline under it
Alt text and file names on images that rank
Structured data, such as your business details, services and FAQs
Internal links, so important pages stay a click or two from the homepage
Canonical tags that point to the right version of each page

Rebuild the same pages with the same copy first, and save rewrites for after the move settles. If traffic changes, you will know whether the platform or the new copy caused it.

Step four: technical checks before launch

Fig. 03

The checks we run on the new site before it goes live

01IndexingNo leftover noindex tags, and a robots.txt that lets search and AI crawlers in.
02SitemapA fresh sitemap that lists every live page, submitted in Search Console.
03RedirectsEvery row of the map tested, each one a single hop to a live page.
04Copy in the HTMLText that search engines can read without running scripts.
05Forms and callsEvery quote form, phone link and booking button tested on a phone.
06SpeedPages that load quickly on a phone over an ordinary connection.

The domain switches only once every check passes.

Step five: launch, then watch

Switch the domain early in the week, when someone is around to watch it. For the first month, check Search Console every day for pages that fail to index, for 404 errors and for sudden drops on pages that used to bring in traffic. A short dip while Google recrawls the site is normal. A dip that keeps going points to a broken redirect or a lost page, and the inventory tells you which one.

Moving from Framer, Webflow, Wix or Squarespace

The method stays the same whatever the platform. Builders differ in how they name URLs and where they keep titles and alt text, so the inventory takes a little more care, but the decisions are identical. Wix and Squarespace sites often use address patterns worth cleaning up during the move, which makes the redirect map even more important.

What it looks like afterward

Extreme Steam, a family-owned steam cleaning company in South Florida, moved from a site builder to custom code we built, with all 478 pages in English and Spanish. In the 46 days from September 5 to October 20, 2026, Search Console shows it first on Google for 187 search terms and on page one for 942.

Fig. 04

Extreme Steam on Google, Sep 5 to Oct 20, 2026

On page one942 terms
Ranked first187 terms

Source: Extreme Steam's Google Search Console, search terms over 46 days.

Where to start

Start with the inventory, because every later step depends on it. Run the Migration Planner on your site, or send us the address and we will list every page, tell you what moves and quote the work.

Plan your migration