Transferring a site to wordpress and its effect on SEO

[FierceFrame]

I have a site that is hosted on a very old platform and would like to move it to WordPress.  We are a surf shop and the summer months are the busiest for us.  I want like to make sure that if I transfer my site that it won't hurt our rankings in any way.  What would the best way of doing this be? i.e start building the WordPress site and once it is finished, point the domain to it? Will this have any ramifications for our rank?  Thank you!

[Stramark]

even after correctly redirecting it could take a few days to a few weeks to have your stable position back. So if your business would hurt extra in summer, do not move until after the season. (appart from the risk you are taking if you or your webbuilder does not have the experience to do this correctly)

[evolvingSEO]

Hey There

Kevin's got a lot of good tips. Here's some additional help:

• If you are keeping the same domain (which it sounds like you are) I would

• Build the new wordpress site on a test/dev server - you can use a spare domain name or hide it in a subdomain of your existing domain (just make sure to not let search engines find it)

• When you are ready with it and happy, before launching - prepare redirects ahead of time

• Then you can move the WordPress install to the root of your site domain

• If your site is on www now, leave it that way (don't switch from www to non-www or vice versa)

• Put the redirects in place and leave them there forever

• Also, be sure to submit your new XML sitemap to webmaster tools (search console) and delete the old one

• Watch search console for crawl errors and fix any that come up

You shouldn't hurt your rankings if this is all executed properly. Your URLs probably will change (thus needing redirects) but as Kevin said, try to keep your architecture the same (menus, footers etc).

[KevinBudzynski]

When migrating a site to a new platform, try to maintain a similar site architecture and implement redirects. So if surfboard style 1 is on old site, create a new surfboard style 1 page on new site with same/similar content and redirect the old urls to the new ones. Also, take good baselines (organic positions, traffic and etc.) and watch your Google Search Console (webmaster tools) for any changes.  For more information, see this guide.