Moving from WordPress to Webflow without losing rankings

A platform move should not cost you search traffic. When rankings fall after a migration, the cause is almost always something that got lost on the way: a URL without a redirect, a page that lost half its content, or title tags nobody copied across. Here is how we move WordPress sites to Webflow and keep what they have earned.

Before you design anything, list every URL

Crawl the live site with a tool such as Screaming Frog and export every indexable URL. Add the pages that bring clicks and links from Google Search Console and your analytics. This list is the contract for the migration: every row needs a home on the new site.

• Pages, posts, categories and tags that get traffic or links
• Images and PDFs that rank or are linked from other sites
• Title tags, meta descriptions, H1s and canonical URLs
• Structured data, such as Article, FAQ or LocalBusiness schema

Keep URLs where you can

The safest redirect is the one you never need. Webflow lets you set the slug of every static page and CMS item, so keep the old slugs wherever the structure allows. CMS items always sit under their collection's folder, such as /blog/post-name, so name the collection to match the old path where possible.

Map every remaining URL to a 301

Anything that does change gets a permanent 301 redirect to the closest equivalent page, never to the homepage. Webflow manages these in the site settings under Publishing, and supports patterns with capture groups, so a whole folder can move with one rule:

Old path                  Redirect to
/category/news/(.*)       /blog/%1
/2023/04/(.*)             /blog/%1
/web-design-services     /services/web-design

Avoid redirect chains. If an old URL already redirected somewhere on WordPress, point it straight at the final new URL.

Move the content, not just the design

Rankings follow content. Bring across the full body copy, headings, internal links, image alt text, and author and date details. If pages are also being rewritten, launch the move first and improve the copy afterwards, so you can tell which change moved the numbers.

Launch day

1. Lower the DNS TTL a day before, so the switch takes effect quickly.
2. Publish, connect the domain and confirm SSL is active.
3. Test old URLs, at least the top 50 by traffic, and confirm each returns a single 301 to the right page.
4. Submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
5. Check robots.txt and page-level robots tags, so nothing set during the build blocks search engines.

The first six weeks

Some movement is normal while Google recrawls the site. Watch the Pages report in Search Console for new 404s, fix any missing redirect the same day, and compare clicks for your top pages week by week. Keep the redirects in place for good; removing them later throws the old signals away again.

Where to start

Start with the URL list. It takes a day, and it tells you how big the migration really is. If you would like us to run the move, see our Webflow development service or book a call.