WordPress Relaunch & Migration

Whether it's a new theme for an existing WordPress site or a move from another system to WordPress — a relaunch is always also a risk for your rankings and your existing content. We make sure both survive in the end.

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Relaunch without ranking loss

The most common relaunch mistake isn't a design question but a technical one: a sloppy URL and redirect strategy. How we approach a relaunch in general, from analysis through concept to go-live — is described on our general relaunch service page. Here it's about what specifically comes on top for WordPress.

Every existing URL is captured before go-live and mapped individually to its new target, instead of redirecting everything wholesale to the homepage. That way your site's visibility in search engines survives the relaunch instead of starting from zero.

301 instead of 302, and no redirect chains

In WordPress relaunches we frequently see two technical mistakes that are easy to avoid: wrongly chosen redirect types and long redirect chains.

What matters with redirects

301 redirect instead of 302: only a permanent 301 redirect transfers the old URL's full ranking value; a temporary 302 signals to search engines that nothing has changed permanently
No redirect chains: if URL A points to B and B to C, we redirect straight from A to C instead of leaving the chain standing
Completeness before speed: an incomplete redirect list throws away visibility for exactly the pages that ranked best before

Technically we implement redirects server-side or via an established plugin like Redirection, depending on what fits your hosting setup.

Migration to or within WordPress

A relaunch doesn't necessarily mean a change of system; often it's about a new theme or a new architecture within WordPress. But we equally accompany the move from another CMS, a hand-coded site or an outdated WordPress setup onto a modern, maintainable WordPress basis.

What gets carried over technically in the migration

Posts, pages and custom post types including their taxonomies (categories, tags)
The complete media library including alt texts and file structure
Users, roles and permissions, if your team works in the backend
Form and contact data from existing plugins

Typical pitfalls in a WordPress relaunch

Most relaunch problems don't arise during development but at the transition from the old site to the new one. We therefore plan this step just as carefully as the actual implementation.

What we specifically watch out for

A changed permalink structure without matching 301 redirects
Lost meta titles, meta descriptions and structured data on a theme switch
Plugin data that gets lost when switching page builders
A go-live without a prior test on a staging environment

Before the actual go-live, the new site therefore runs on a staging environment where we test everything calmly, from redirects through forms to the mobile rendering.

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