How Will Rebuilding an Old Website Impact SEO?

It's smart to address these questions before jumping into the rebuild. Check your analytics from the last two years to identify which landing pages are driving organic traffic. Create a redirect plan that maps old URLs to the most relevant new ones instead of just sending everyone to your homepage. If your URLs are changing, this mapping will prevent confusion for search crawlers. You might want to look into tools like WISLR for automating redirect mapping.

To check how well the site is positioned in Google search, consider using tools like Ahrefs' Keyword Rank Checker. Even if you don't have access to analytics yet, this can help you gauge initial performance.

Before you migrate to WordPress, crawling the existing site with a tool like Screaming Frog can help you see what Google currently recognizes on your site. This way, you can ensure all old URLs, including blog posts and categories, are properly redirected.

Rebuilding shouldn't hurt your SEO as long as you keep the same URLs or set up proper 301 redirects. The biggest risk is breaking existing links, so be sure to map everything carefully before you start. If you're concerned about backlinks, sorting them is crucial. As long as those backlinks point to the correct page and not a 404, you should be good. It’s all about keeping things in order.