WordPress Migration
We move WordPress sites to fast, custom-built sites that you own outright. Your pages, posts, and media come across, every old URL is redirected so rankings and links keep working, and there are no plugins left to update.
Who this is for
- WordPress sites that are slow, were hacked, or need a steady stream of plugin and security updates.
- Sites built years ago by someone who has since moved on, where nobody is sure which plugins matter or who pays the host.
- Owners paying for hosting and a maintenance plan just to keep an old site standing.
What you move to
A custom site built for what yours actually does, instead of a general-purpose CMS. Pages that rarely change become fast static pages. Content you update often, such as posts, recordings, or event notices, gets a small editor made for exactly that content, which is simpler to use than the WordPress admin.
The site runs on Cloudflare in your own account, alongside your domain and DNS. Static sites usually fit within Cloudflare's free tier, and there is no plugin stack to keep patched.
What carries over
- Pages, posts, images, audio, and other media, moved by script and checked against the old site, not copied by hand.
- Your URLs, kept where possible and redirected where not, so search rankings and old links keep working.
- Titles, descriptions, and the other metadata search engines use.
- Your domain and email, with DNS consolidated in one account you control.
How a migration works
- Inventory. Every URL, page, post, and media file, plus where the domain, DNS, email, and hosting actually live. On older sites these are often spread across several accounts and people.
- Plan. What the new site needs to do, and what can be dropped.
- Build and move content. The new site is built and the content migrated and checked.
- Redirect map. Every old URL is mapped to its new page.
- Launch. DNS is switched, every redirect is tested, and the sitemap is submitted to search engines.
- Handover. Accounts are in your name, and nothing on the old host is cancelled until we have confirmed what else depends on it.
The search side of this is covered step by step in our SEO site migration checklist.
Experience
We have migrated long-running WordPress sites to custom builds, including a teaching community’s site whose 638 recorded talks and meditations, spread across WordPress and Google Drive, were moved by script into a searchable library with the old addresses redirected. See our work.
Frequently asked questions
- Will I lose my Google rankings if I move off WordPress?
- Not if every old URL is redirected to its new page and each page keeps its content and metadata. We build the redirect map before launch, test it at launch, and watch Search Console afterwards. The steps are in our SEO site migration checklist.
- Can I still update my site without WordPress?
- Yes. For content you update regularly, we build a small editor for exactly that content, such as posting a new recording or a class notice. Sites that rarely change can skip the editor and stay simpler.
- What happens to my old WordPress hosting?
- Once the new site is live and the redirects are confirmed, the old host is no longer needed for the site. Old hosting accounts often also run email or other sites, so we check what else depends on them before anything is cancelled.
- What is the best alternative to WordPress?
- It depends on what the site does. Our WordPress alternatives guide compares the main options and when each fits.
- How much does a WordPress migration cost?
- It depends mostly on how much content there is and how many custom features the old site has. We quote per project or hourly, and new clients can start with a free pilot. See pricing.