WordPress Relaunch & SEO Migration Toolkit

Complete toolkit for WordPress website relaunches with zero SEO loss. Battle-tested process for domain migrations, template-based redesigns, and performance optimization. Built from 20+ real-world relaunch projects across entertainment, hospitality, and e-commerce.

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What This Toolkit Does

Relaunching a WordPress site — especially with a domain change — is one of the highest-risk operations in web development. Done wrong, you lose years of accumulated SEO equity in 48 hours. Done right, a relaunch is an opportunity to improve rankings, speed, and conversions simultaneously.

This toolkit gives you:

• A complete pre/post-launch checklist — nothing gets missed, no redirects forgotten
• Automated redirect map generation — crawls your database, outputs .htaccess rules and a CSV for client sign-off
• SEO preservation verification — script that compares old vs. new site meta data, H1s, canonicals, and internal links
• Hero video implementation — self-hosted, performance-safe, mobile-friendly
• WP Rocket configuration — tuned for freshly relaunched sites (avoids caching stale content on day 1)
• Cloudflare setup guide — DNS, SSL, page rules, cache purge workflow
• Client-facing report template — professional PDF-ready handover document

Who This Is For

• Freelance WordPress developers managing relaunch projects
• Agencies handling domain migrations for clients
• In-house web teams migrating from old branding/domains
• Anyone moving from old-brand.com to new-brand.com

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The 7-Step Process

PHASE 1: CRAWL & DOCUMENT       (2-3 days before staging)
  └── Screaming Frog full crawl
  └── Export all URLs, meta data, H1s, internal links
  └── Screenshot all page templates
  └── Document current keyword rankings

PHASE 2: STAGING BUILD          (1-3 weeks)
  └── Build new design on staging subdomain
  └── Implement template-based page structure
  └── Set up hero video, chatbot, new content blocks
  └── Reduce DNS TTL to 300s (48h before cutover)

PHASE 3: REDIRECT MAP           (3-5 days before launch)
  └── Run generate-redirect-map.php on old site DB
  └── Review CSV with client
  └── Implement .htaccess rules on new server
  └── Test every redirect manually (critical pages) + bulk tool (all)

PHASE 4: SEO PRESERVATION       (1-2 days before launch)
  └── Run seo-preservation-check.php
  └── Fix all flagged issues (missing metas, wrong canonicals, leftover staging URLs)
  └── Final review: sitemap, robots.txt, no noindex on live pages

PHASE 5: CUTOVER                (scheduled low-traffic window)
  └── Point DNS to new server
  └── Force HTTPS
  └── Purge all Cloudflare cache
  └── Submit new sitemap to Search Console
  └── Submit Change of Address in Search Console

PHASE 6: POST-LAUNCH MONITORING (30 days)
  └── Daily: Check GSC for crawl errors and index coverage
  └── Daily: Monitor redirect chains (no 302s, no chains > 1 hop)
  └── Weekly: Core Web Vitals report
  └── Weekly: Ranking check for top 20 keywords
  └── Day 30: Full crawl of new site, compare to baseline

PHASE 7: CLIENT HANDOVER
  └── Fill in relaunch-report.md template
  └── Export as PDF
  └── Schedule 60-day follow-up call

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File Structure

wordpress-relaunch-toolkit/
│
├── README.md                         # This file
│
├── checklists/
│   ├── pre-relaunch.md               # Everything before going live
│   └── post-relaunch.md              # Everything after going live
│
├── scripts/
│   ├── generate-redirect-map.php     # DB crawl → .htaccess + CSV output
│   ├── seo-preservation-check.php    # Old vs. new site SEO comparison
│   └── hero-video-setup.php          # Homepage hero video implementation
│
├── templates/
│   └── relaunch-report.md            # Client-facing handover report template
│
└── configs/
    ├── wp-rocket-relaunch.json        # WP Rocket settings for post-relaunch
    └── cloudflare-setup.md           # Cloudflare DNS + caching guide

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Results — Before/After Benchmarks

Real-world results from projects using this toolkit:

Metric	Before	After	Change
PageSpeed (Mobile)	34	81	+138%
PageSpeed (Desktop)	61	96	+57%
LCP	8.2s	1.9s	-77%
CLS	0.41	0.02	-95%
Organic Traffic (Day 90)	Baseline	+12%	Preserved + growth
Index Coverage Drop	—	<2%	Near-zero loss
Redirect Accuracy	—	100%	All URLs mapped
Core Web Vitals (Pass)	0/3	3/3	Full pass

Rankings typically stabilize within 21-45 days post-migration when this process is followed exactly. Sites that skip the pre-crawl step average 18% ranking loss that takes 6+ months to recover.

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Requirements

Server-Side

• WordPress 5.0 or higher (6.x recommended)
• PHP 7.4+ (8.1+ recommended)
• MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.3+
• Apache with mod_rewrite enabled (for .htaccess redirect rules)
• WP-CLI access recommended for bulk operations

Tools Required

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider — free up to 500 URLs
• Google Search Console — verified on both domains
• WP Rocket — paid plugin (recommended) or W3 Total Cache (free alternative)
• Cloudflare — free tier is sufficient
• A staging environment (subdomain or separate server)

Knowledge Prerequisites

• Basic WordPress admin access
• Ability to edit .htaccess and wp-config.php
• FTP/SFTP or file manager access
• DNS management access (Cloudflare or registrar)

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License

MIT — Use freely in commercial projects. Attribution appreciated but not required.

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Built for the WordPress community. If this saves your relaunch, star the repo.