How to move a company website from WordPress without losing Google rankings

When a website brings in enquiries from Google, the biggest risk of a move is a silent one. Nothing breaks, and enquiries stop coming. This guide is based on moving the website of a healthcare company from WordPress to Next.js, where Google had 158 addresses indexed. It covers the preparation, without results from after the move.

1. Collect all addresses and all content

Start with a list of addresses. The design of the new site can wait. Our export through the WordPress interface gave 44 pages, 28 posts, 28 case studies and 247 files. A static copy of the site was made alongside.

Do not trust one source. A server can cut a response below the requested size, and a crawler only sees what links lead to. Comparing both sources showed the gaps.

2. Check that nothing was lost

Compare the export with a database copy limited to the content tables. You do not need forms and accounts for this. For us this confirmed a match, and comparing addresses recovered one file.

3. Keep the old address on every record

If each record remembers its old address, the redirect map can be generated. You don’t have to write it by hand. We ended with 82 rules: 57 from data and 25 by hand, mainly menus, archives and plugin leftovers.

4. Write a command that checks the redirects

Redirects cannot be checked by hand. Our command goes through every address of the old site and shows where it leads. The run of 29 October 2026 on the test version: 99 addresses, 67 permanently redirected, 32 unchanged, 0 dead.

Google recommends permanent redirects, kept for as long as possible, generally at least a year.

5. Restore what the plugins did

WordPress plugins silently produce many things that vanish in a move:

• structured data (organisation, articles, breadcrumbs),
• canonical addresses, descriptions and sharing cards,
• the sitemap and robots.txt.

Check the content after the import too. Our converter silently removed videos, and the import cut images out of articles.

6. Keep the test version out of Google

The test version should sit behind a password, so it does not compete with the real site. Google reminds you to remove any noindex or robots.txt blocks that were only needed while you worked.

7. Switch and watch

Rebuild the site with the production address and check all addresses again. Submit the sitemap in Search Console and watch rankings. According to Google, temporary fluctuations are normal.

Most of the work is the address list, the completeness check and the redirect map. If your site brings in enquiries and you are thinking of moving, write to us. We’ll first check what there is to lose.