WordPress SEO Migration and Technical Audit
A risk-critical migration from Yoast SEO to AISEO on a live WordPress site with established page 1 rankings, executed without any loss of indexing, rankings, or conversion tracking continuity.
Overview
This project involved a full SEO plugin migration on a live WordPress site that already had multiple pages and articles ranking on page 1 of Google. The primary risk was losing those rankings or triggering deindexing during the transition from Yoast SEO to AISEO.
Beyond the migration itself, the project also covered a full schema audit and cleanup, broken link resolution, and a Google Tag Manager integration to ensure conversion tracking remained accurate for ongoing Google Ads campaigns.
The Challenge
Key risks going into migration
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Existing page 1 rankings at risk of dropping if metadata or canonical tags were lost or duplicated during plugin switch.
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Multiple schema errors and duplicate schema tags already present before migration, compounding the risk of crawl issues post-switch.
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Broken internal links creating dead ends for both users and crawl bots, weakening site authority.
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No conversion tracking infrastructure in place, meaning Google Ads spend had no measurable attribution to actual customer actions.
The Solution
Plugin Migration: Yoast to AISEO
The migration required careful sequencing to ensure no SEO data was lost between plugins. All existing metadata, titles, descriptions, and canonical configurations were verified and preserved throughout the transition.
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Audited all existing Yoast metadata across pages and posts before initiating the migration.
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Executed the full plugin switch from Yoast SEO to AISEO on the live site without interrupting indexing or ranking signals.
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Verified post-migration that all meta titles, descriptions, and canonicals were correctly mapped and carried over.
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Monitored Google Search Console during and after migration to confirm zero deindexing events across all previously ranked pages.
Schema Audit and Cleanup
Prior to migration, the site had missing schema tags on key pages and multiple instances of duplicated structured data that were creating noise for Google’s crawlers.
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Conducted a full schema audit across the website to identify missing, incorrect, and duplicated structured data.
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Removed all duplicate schema tags and implemented clean, accurate schema markup tailored to each page type.
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Added missing schema where none existed, ensuring Google bots could fetch and interpret website information clearly and completely.
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Validated all schema using Google’s Rich Results Test post-implementation.
Broken Link Resolution
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Identified all broken internal links across the site using a full link audit.
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Implemented 301 redirects for all broken URLs to preserve link equity and ensure no internal dead ends remained for users or crawl bots.
Google Tag Manager and Conversion Tracking
The client was running active Google Ads campaigns but had no conversion tracking in place. I built the full tracking infrastructure from scratch using Google Tag Manager.
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Set up and configured Google Tag Manager on the WordPress site.
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Created custom-named conversion events triggered when customers initiated purchases of products or services online.
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Connected conversion events to Google Analytics 4 for full traffic and behaviour attribution.
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Linked GA4 conversion data to Google Ads to enable proper campaign performance measurement and optimization.
Results
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Zero pages deindexed throughout the migration. All existing page 1 rankings were maintained post-switch.
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Schema fully cleaned up with no duplicate or missing structured data remaining, improving Google’s ability to crawl and fetch site information accurately.
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All broken internal links resolved via 301 redirects, restoring crawl path integrity across the site.
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Full conversion tracking operational through GTM and GA4, with custom events now recording customer purchase actions and feeding attribution data directly into Google Ads.
Tools and Technologies Used
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SEO Plugins: Yoast SEO, AISEO.
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Schema: Google Rich Results Test, structured data markup.
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Tracking: Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics 4, Google Ads conversion tracking.
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Technical: 301 redirects, internal link audit, Google Search Console monitoring.