SEO-friendly WordPress migration: management and execution

A poorly managed WordPress migration means a drop in SEO traffic of 30 to 70 %, which is absorbed over 6 to 12 months. Evolurise manages the migration from start to finish: preliminary audit, URL mapping 301 line by line, staging environment recipe, DNS switchover, 14-day monitoring. Zero loss of referencing, downtime of less than 30 minutes.

Standard perimeter

• Pre-migration audit Core Web Vitals, URL structure, schema, sitemap, Google indexing, quality of incoming backlinks
• Line-by-line URL mapping old → new mapping table, 301 redirects tested before switchover
• Complete backup database + files + configurations, time-stamped snapshots stored off-site
• Staging recipe automated functional and SEO test suite, user validation on isolated environment
• DNS failover scheduled shutdown window outside traffic peaks, DNS TTL reduced in advance to switch over in minutes
• 14-day post-balance monitoring Google indexing, Core Web Vitals, 404 errors, conversions

Method

1. Phase 1: audit and inventory (5 days). We map the existing site in detail: pages, URLs, redirects already in place, critical plugins, third-party integrations.
2. Phase 2: preparation (10 to 20 days). Creation of target environment, server configuration, content import, URL mapping.
3. Phase 3: Recipe (5 days). Line-by-line functional testing, SEO validation (canonicals, hreflang, schema), review with your team.
4. Phase 4: switchover (D-Day). Scheduled short outage, DNS failover, immediate post-migration checks.
5. Phase 5: monitoring (14 days). Daily reporting on indexing, performance, errors. Immediate corrections if drift.

Typical cases

WordPress redesign with new URL structure. Migration of a Wix, Webflow or Shopify site to WordPress. Switch hosting provider (OVH to Coolify, WP Engine to Cloudways, etc.). Merge two WordPress sites. Multilingual migration (from a mono site to WPML or TranslatePress).

Contractual warranties

Contractually guaranteed downtime of less than 30 minutes (scheduled window). Organic traffic maintained at a minimum of 95 % over the 90 days following the switchover, as measured in Search Console. Full recovery within 4 hours in the event of a critical issue, with restoration from backup.