{"id":106243,"date":"2020-05-27T17:05:06","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T22:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/?p=106243"},"modified":"2021-11-21T14:52:29","modified_gmt":"2021-11-21T20:52:29","slug":"understanding-top-website-migration-factors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/understanding-top-website-migration-factors\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Top Website Migration Factors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The following post was written by Kris Hadlock, President and CTO, at website migration specialist <\/em><\/strong>WordHerd<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Migrating a website from one platform to another may seem like a straightforward process, but there are many factors to take into consideration. You may be thinking that it simply involves a copy and paste of content, downloading and reuploading images, and choosing a theme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, that is really just scratching the surface. Let\u2019s first take a look into what content actually consists of; titles, body copy, excerpts, hyperlinks and media need to be considered. All post categories, tags, authors and dates\/times need to be retained. All meta titles, descriptions and schema must be moved into an SEO plugin in order to maintain existing Search Engine Equity. URLs must be preserved or redirected so search engines do not de-index your web pages. Finally, there are almost always unexpected obstacles you will encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we will dive into a few of the most important details of website migration and why it is important to understand the complexities of such an endeavour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maintain Existing Search Engine Equity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Search Engine Equity refers to the historical search engine presence that your website has built over the years. If pages change names or website restructuring occurs during migration, search engines will need to recrawl your website and reindex that content, which had a historical presence across the web. If this history is lost, the reindexing could take a long time to reestablish. As we all know, Search Engine Optimization is the lifeblood of any website, therefore losing any Search Engine Equity can be disastrous to an established website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An often overlooked requirement with any website migration is to ensure proper redirects are put into place for URLs that need to change. Maintaining website structure should always be a number one priority with any migration, but sometimes this is not possible. For example, if you have a blog on a sub-domain and you are merging your main website with the blog into WordPress as a new CMS, the blog will require restructuring on the root domain. Luckily there is a solution in 301 redirects and there are a number of options for implementing these. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A common way for developers to manage 301 redirects is in a file called htaccess, which sits in the root directory of your WordPress installation. This file also happens to be what WordPress uses for SEO-friendly URLs, but that is a separate topic. Another solution that is very client-friendly is through the implementation of a free WordPress plugin, such as Redirection<\/a>, or premium plugins such as Redirect Manager<\/a>, which is part of Yoast Premium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as important as retaining URL structure is ensuring that you maintain SEO metadata. This should include the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n