How to change website platforms without losing your Google rankings
Your rankings are tied to your page addresses and the details search engines read behind the scenes. Keep both intact and a platform change is a non-event for Google.
The biggest worry we hear about leaving WordPress is losing search traffic. It's a fair worry: a careless rebuild can quietly undo years of work. But your rankings aren't tied to WordPress. They're tied to your pages: their addresses, their content, and the details search engines read behind the scenes.
Keep every address the same
If every page keeps its exact address, search engines don't have to relearn anything. When an address truly has to change, Google recommends a permanent (301) redirect from the old address to the new one, kept in place for at least a year. Google says these redirects don't cost you ranking credit.
Carry over what visitors never see
Search engines read far more than your visible text. A careful move keeps all of it:
- Page titles and meta descriptions
- Canonical tags and noindex settings
- Structured data (schema) for your firm, your people, your articles, and your FAQs
- Open Graph share cards and oEmbed links
- XML sitemaps, robots.txt, and RSS feeds
- Image alt text, heading structure, and internal links
- Analytics tags and Search Console verification
Fix what was already broken
A move is the perfect time to clean up. Repair broken links, fix pages that lead nowhere, compress oversized images, and fill in missing titles and descriptions. Faster, cleaner pages are easier for search engines to crawl, so a careful move can help your rankings, not just protect them.
Watch closely after launch
Even a well-run move can cause a brief wobble. Google notes that rankings can fluctuate temporarily during a move, and that it can take a few weeks for things to settle on a medium-sized site. Check Search Console in the weeks after launch for crawl errors and dips, and fix anything unusual right away.
The short version
- Same addresses, or permanent redirects when they must change
- Every behind-the-scenes detail carried over
- Old problems fixed along the way
- Close monitoring for the first month
That's exactly how we move sites. Get a free savings audit to see what moving yours would involve, and what you'd save.