Moving from WordPress to Astro: the migration plan
Content, images, URLs and rankings carry over. Themes and plugins do not, on purpose. The seven-step plan to move from WordPress to Astro and keep traffic.
The short answer
Moving a site from WordPress to Astro is a rebuild with a content import. The content, images and URLs are carried over carefully. The theme and the plugin stack are not carried over at all; they are replaced by a design built for the business and code the business owns. Rankings survive because every old address keeps working or redirects permanently to its replacement.
The plan below is the one we run. The technical import is the easy part; the redirect map and the plugin inventory are where the care goes.
The seven steps
- Inventory. Export every URL the old site serves, from the sitemap, from Search Console and from the server. List every plugin with the function it actually performs. List every form and where its submissions go.
- Decide what carries over. Which pages stay, which merge, which retire. Which plugin functions matter and how each is replaced. What the editors need in order to keep working.
- Build the redirect map. For every old URL: same address on the new site, or a permanent redirect to a specific new address. Retired pages redirect to the closest relevant page, not to the homepage.
- Import and rebuild. Content and images imported into the new structure; design and templates built; SEO titles, descriptions and structured data carried over or improved; forms rebuilt with proper spam protection.
- Verify side by side. The new site on a preview address, checked page by page against the old: content, metadata, images, forms, redirects, speed, accessibility.
- Switch. Lower DNS TTL in advance, point the domain at the new site, keep the old one reachable for a few days in case something was missed.
- Watch. Search Console daily for two weeks, weekly for a month: crawl errors, redirect chains, ranking movement. Fix anything that appears.
What carries over, and what does not
| Carries over | Replaced |
|---|---|
| Pages and posts, with their text and structure | The theme, and any page-builder layout |
| Images and files, re-optimised on the way | Plugins, one by one, by built-in functions or nothing |
| URLs, either unchanged or redirected | The public admin and the database in front of visitors |
| Titles, descriptions, structured data | Hosting, to a static build on an edge network |
| Form fields and destinations | Form handling, with server-side spam protection |
| Analytics and Search Console history | Any hardcoded tracking snippets, consolidated |
The plugin inventory
Every plugin gets a line: name, what it does, who uses it, how the new site provides it. The result is usually three groups: functions that matter and are built into the new site, often more lightly; functions provided by a plugin that nobody used; and functions that were the reason the site was slow. The second and third groups are simply gone.
What this means for you
If you are considering the move, ask for two documents from any supplier before the design conversation: the redirect map approach and the plugin inventory. A supplier who starts with those understands what a migration is. Then expect a site that is faster, has no plugin stack to patch, and is built in code you own, with the search history you earned intact.
Frequently asked questions
Will we lose our Google rankings?
Not if the URLs are handled properly. Every page that existed either keeps the same address or gets a permanent redirect to the new one, and the new pages keep the titles, descriptions and content that earned the ranking. Done that way, the URLs and content that rankings depend on stay in place, and the speed improves. Done carelessly, with URLs changed and no redirects, traffic drops. The redirect map is the whole game.
Can our editors still edit content?
Yes, through a content system connected to the build, or by keeping WordPress as a headless content source with Astro serving the pages. The editing experience is chosen for your team; the visitors get a static site either way.
What happens to our plugins?
Each one is listed with the function it performs. Functions that matter, forms, SEO metadata, galleries, redirects, are rebuilt as part of the site, usually lighter and without a plugin. Functions nobody uses are dropped. The inventory usually surprises people with how many plugins did nothing.
How long does a migration take?
For a business site of a few dozen pages with a blog, weeks rather than months, with most of the time in design, content review and the redirect map rather than in the technical import. Large archives or many custom plugin features take longer and are phased.
Sources
- Astro documentation: Migrating from WordPress (accessed 2026-09-11)
- Google Search Central: Redirects and Google Search (accessed 2026-09-11)