Client project
Recovering old WordPress URLs after a migration
I investigated old WordPress URLs, mapped those with useful replacements, and checked the redirects after implementation. Pages without a relevant replacement were kept out of blanket redirect rules.
The project
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What the client needed
Old URLs with a relevant replacement should reach it in one redirect. Retired or ambiguous pages should not be sent to an unrelated destination.
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The problem
- Old URLs did not have reliable current destinations.
- Redirect rules needed page-by-page review.
- Canonicals, sitemaps, and internal links needed to agree with the replacement URLs.
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My role
- Investigated the old URLs and prepared the redirect map.
- Separated exact replacements from retired pages and unresolved URLs.
- Checked the live redirects after implementation.
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What I changed
- Mapped recoverable old URLs to specific current pages.
- Excluded retired or unmatched pages from unsafe catch-all redirects.
- Aligned the redirect plan with canonical URLs, sitemaps, and internal links.
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How I checked it
- Checked that sampled old URLs reached the intended destination in one hop.
- Checked for redirect chains, loops, and soft 404s.
- Compared live responses with the agreed redirect map.
About these results
- The redirects were checked technically. This summary does not report recovered rankings, traffic, or indexing for every old URL.
- Client names and private materials are withheld. The original test records are not reproduced here.