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SEO Recovery After a WordPress to Next.js Migration

This is the post‑migration problem: WordPress has moved to Next.js, but traffic, rankings, or indexed coverage have dropped because the new technical SEO layer no longer matches the old estate.

Recover lost visibility after a WordPress‑to‑Next.js migration by tracing technical gaps in redirects, canonicals, sitemaps, rendering, and route continuity for priority pages.

Short Answer

A WordPress to Next.js migration can look complete while organic visibility falls away because redirects, canonicals, metadata, structured data, or internal links no longer match the old estate. Recovery starts by comparing the old and new route behaviour, rendered HTML, crawl and indexation signals, then fixing the high‑value pages before noise takes over.

Typical Symptoms

  • Traffic, rankings, or indexed URLs dropped after a WordPress to Next.js migration.
  • Old WordPress URLs are not mapping cleanly into the new platform.
  • Metadata, canonicals, or sitemaps no longer match what search engines expect.

Likely Causes

  • Redirect coverage is incomplete or implemented inconsistently.
  • Metadata parity between WordPress and Next.js was not preserved.
  • Rendered links, canonicals, or crawl paths changed during the migration.

What I Look at First

  • Compare high‑value legacy WordPress URLs against live redirects, canonicals, rendered metadata, and structured data now in production.
  • Internal links and navigation paths that changed with the new build.
  • Which important commercial pages lost visibility first, and whether crawl comparisons, analytics, and Search Console data agree on the first break points.

How I Help Fix This

  • Trace the visibility loss back to specific rendering, redirect, canonical, discovery, and indexation issues.
  • Separate urgent visibility fixes from broader cleanup before the work spreads too thin.
  • Help roll out, monitor, and triage regression risk after each recovery release.

When to Look at This

  • As soon as the post‑launch drop is visible rather than after weeks of partial fixes.
  • When the migration shipped but nobody has a route‑by‑route view of what broke.

What Gets Resolved

  • Lost WordPress URLs, changed templates, redirects, canonicals, and rendered content are mapped against the new Next.js output.
  • Lost or underperforming URLs are mapped against rendered HTML and crawl or indexing signals.
  • Redirect, canonical, sitemap, robots, metadata, and schema faults are separated.
  • Fixes are prioritised by commercial search exposure and implementation risk.
  • The team knows which evidence to re‑check after release.

How This Usually Works

  1. Technical Diagnostic

    A focused review of affected routes, templates, deployment behaviour, crawl signals, CMS behaviour, performance bottlenecks, or code paths, followed by a prioritised fix plan the team can take into delivery.

  2. Recovery Sprint

    A short, concentrated engagement for a defined technical SEO, performance, CMS, Vercel, migration, or production issue where the business needs the cause isolated and the first fixes moved quickly.

Common Questions

Is this different from a general SEO audit?
Yes. This page is for post‑migration recovery where the old WordPress estate and the new Next.js estate need to be compared route by route, template by template, until the technical cause of the visibility loss is clear.
Can you help if the migration is already live?
Yes. Most recovery work starts after launch, once the drop in rankings, traffic, or indexed URLs is visible enough to prioritise.

Talk to me about your recovery

A short description of the affected route, Search Console signal, or production symptom is enough. I'll read it and suggest the next step.

Get in touch

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