Losing SEO rankings when moving to WordPress

  • I would like to move a traditional HTML website over to WordPress. I have several SEO keywords that have very high rankings for with Google and I am wondering, if I remove their current website files and build the new one on WP, will I lose those rankings?

    This is a children’s retail website and part of my monthly sales depend on these rankings, so obviously this is something I am nervous about.

    Does anyone know what would happen to my rankings in a situation like this?

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • Hard to say actually. Search engines usually love WordPress and with the right plugins for SEO it might even be better. But of course every chance in the structure of a site might trigger some lost rankings, maybe only for a short time..

    Why don’t you build a test version of the site and make sure that important rankings are included in the site as tags, in titles etc.

    Thread Starter virtualve

    (@virtualve)

    Thank you for your input. Do you think putting a redirect on every current HTML page to the new website will help keep the rankings?

    Yes. Make sure that you put a redirect on every page that is currently indexed to point it to a new page that actually exists. Try to make sure that it’s a 301 redirect (this tells the SE’s that it’s permanant) and you should be fine. You will loose some rankings for a short time when you do the change over as making big changes like this can trigger something with Google, but this should be for a week at most and you’ll be back up to where you were – assuming that you’ve used the same on-site SEO for the new site.

    Thread Starter virtualve

    (@virtualve)

    Thank you michael.mariart – can you clarify what you mean when you say “assuming that you’ve used the same on-site SEO for the new site.” Thanks!

    That’s making sure that you have the same keyword-based text, the same headings, and the same h1/h2/etc tags set up the same way that you have now. Overall this doesn’t have the greatest effect on your rankings compared to inbound links, but it’s still something to be carefull of if you have the chance to go through it all.

    Thread Starter virtualve

    (@virtualve)

    This has been super helpful – I really appreciate it!

    Hey I’m wondering how this all worked out for your search rank in the end? I have the exact same concern and I am hoping to switch a site over to WordPress.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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