Before WordPress URLs are finalized
- Crawl the live Wix site and export XML sitemap URLs.
- Add organic landing pages, conversions, backlinks, campaign links, and URLs absent from navigation.
- Record status, indexability, canonical, title, description, H1, structured data, language signals, internal links, and media references.
- Identify priority pages and pages that should consolidate or be removed.
- Approve the WordPress URL pattern before templates and redirect rules are locked.
Create a one-to-one URL decision map
For every valuable Wix URL, record the final canonical WordPress destination, expected status, redirect rule, reason, owner, and test result. Preserve a useful path when possible; when a path changes, redirect it directly to the closest equivalent.
Avoid redirect chains, loops, broad rules that capture unrelated paths, and sending removed content to the homepage. Test host variants, HTTP and HTTPS, trailing slashes, case, encoded characters, query parameters, files, feeds, and campaign URLs.
Transfer page-level search signals
| Element | Migration action | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Titles, descriptions, and H1s | Map useful source values or approve intentional rewrites | Compare priority URLs and find missing or duplicated values |
| Canonical URLs | Point indexable pages to their final self-canonical URL | Check rendered HTML and status of the canonical target |
| Internal links | Rewrite to final WordPress URLs | Crawl for old Wix paths, redirects, and broken targets |
| Structured data | Reimplement valid destination markup | Test rendered schema and required properties |
| Images and files | Move accessible assets and update references | Check response status, indexing intent, alt text, and embedded URLs |
Validate staging without exposing it to search
- Keep staging behind access controls and explicit noindex protection.
- Allow the authorized migration team to crawl rendered pages.
- Compare status codes, canonicals, robots directives, titles, descriptions, H1s, schema, links, images, pagination, language signals, and sitemap membership.
- Test mobile rendering, performance, navigation, forms, analytics events, and the path into the Migranetix app.
- Confirm production will remove staging-only blocks without copying staging URLs into canonicals or sitemaps.
Launch-day checklist
- Complete the content freeze or final delta transfer and reconcile the result.
- Confirm production hostname, HTTPS, certificates, status codes, robots rules, canonicals, and indexability.
- Apply and test the approved redirects, including priority Wix landing pages and backlinks.
- Crawl the production site for broken links, old host references, blocked assets, redirect chains, and missing metadata.
- Verify analytics and conversion events, publish the XML sitemap, and submit it through the configured search tooling.
- Keep named owners for errors, rollback decisions, content corrections, and redirect changes.
Monitor after the platform switch
Track server errors, 404s, redirect hits, index coverage, sitemap processing, priority URL inspection, organic landing pages, queries, backlinks, conversions, and page performance. Compare patterns by page group rather than reacting to one URL at a time.
Keep important redirects for the long term. Record every correction in the URL map so configuration, tests, and evidence remain aligned. For transfer mechanics, read the Wix export guide; for commercial scope, use the Wix to WordPress migration page.