Moving from WordPress to Astro and EmDash: how a redesign really runs

Moving a WordPress site to an Astro site with EmDash is not a file transfer: it is a redesign. The content can be imported, but the design and the features that came from plugins are rebuilt. Here is how it really runs, step by step, what carries over, what changes, and the three precautions that decide whether it goes well: addresses, search rankings and forms. If you are still weighing the two foundations, start with Astro or WordPress: which foundation for your next site.

Before you touch anything

EmDash's migration documentation asks for two things before any import.

• A full backup of the WordPress database and the media folder.
• A written inventory of what the new site has to keep: the address structure, the redirects already in place, the menus, the content types, the categories and tags, and the fields added by plugins.

This inventory is the least visible and most useful part of the project. It is what lets you check, at the end, that nothing has been left behind.

What carries over

EmDash has an import wizard in its admin, with two possible sources.

The media files themselves are downloaded in a separate step, which rewrites image addresses inside the content. The WordPress site therefore has to stay reachable during the operation. Authors are matched to EmDash users or become simple bylines.

What changes

Not everything comes across as it is, and the documentation says so plainly.

• The design is rebuilt. Neither the WordPress theme nor its plugins run in EmDash. Pages are rebuilt as Astro components, from a theme or from scratch.
• Complex layouts need checking. Block editor and classic editor content is converted. Anything from a page builder, shortcodes or plugin blocks has to be checked on the rendered site, and blocks computed at display time, such as a list of latest posts, arrive empty and have to be redone.
• Password-protected content arrives as drafts: EmDash has no per-entry passwords.
• Day-to-day work moves to a new tool. Your team will write in EmDash rather than in the WordPress admin. We describe what that involves in Editing your own site with EmDash.

Precaution 1: addresses

It is the rule we repeat in Migrating a WordPress site without losing SEO: every old address must either stay the same or redirect to its new equivalent. With Astro, the site's code defines the shape of the addresses, so you need to decide from the start whether to reproduce WordPress's.

EmDash's documentation recommends crawling every old public address and preparing a redirect for each route that changes. EmDash provides a redirects screen for this, which handles permanent and temporary redirects as well as a "gone" response, plus a log of pages not found to catch what slipped through. Once the site is live, changing the address of a published entry creates a permanent redirect automatically.

Precaution 2: search rankings

Three points are specific to EmDash.

• Yoast or Rank Math data can be imported, but it lands in ordinary fields. It only appears in the page if the site's code uses it, or if it is copied into each entry's SEO panel.
• Staging mode. A site created with the setup wizard starts in staging: every page asks search engines not to index it. At cutover, the site has to be switched live in the settings, or it stays invisible in Google.
• The sitemap is generated automatically from published content. It is then submitted in Search Console, as on any site.

Our SEO setup, a one-off service, covers these foundations on any site, hosted with us or not. It promises no ranking.

Precaution 3: forms

On WordPress, contact, quote and signup forms nearly always come from a plugin. It will not be carried over: each form has to be rebuilt, then tested end to end before cutover, sending and receiving included. List your forms in the inventory, with the email address that receives each one.

Cutover day

Before pointing the domain name at the new site, EmDash's documentation lists the checks: the number of entries by type and status, a sample of each kind of page, images served from the new site, authors, categories, tags and menus, and drafts staying hidden from visitors. Keep the backup and the WordPress site until the new site is stable.

Our redesigns follow this sequence. The Site Web Premium starts from a theme in our catalog, which you can see at alohapixel.app, and can read products, prices and stock from a WooCommerce or Shopify shop already in place.

A move to Astro and EmDash depends less on the technology than on the list drawn up at the start. Take the time to make it complete: addresses, forms, plugin features. Everything on it gets checked at the end; anything missing from it can disappear without anyone noticing.

Also worth reading: What an Astro and EmDash site costs compared with a WordPress site

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