When my wife and I rebranded her business from hannahmarie.beauty to makeupartistry.studio, I had one critical goal. The site needed to move without losing the Google rankings she had worked years to build.

A WordPress migration sounds simple, but there are several places where things can quietly break SEO. After working through a few unexpected issues, this is the exact process I followed.

This guide assumes a setup similar to mine:

  • WordPress hosting on a LiteSpeed server such as Hostinger
  • WPVivid for migration
  • Cloudflare for DNS and security

Migration Environment

  • Old domain: hannahmarie.beauty
  • New domain: makeupartistry.studio
  • Hosting: LiteSpeed based shared hosting
  • Migration plugin: WPVivid
  • DNS and security: Cloudflare

Phase 1: Pre-Migration Preparation

Before moving anything, you need a clean foundation. Most migration problems happen because one of these steps was skipped.

Create a Full Backup

I created a complete backup of the old site using WPVivid.

This is your safety net. If anything goes wrong during migration, you need a reliable way back.

Prepare the New Hosting

I created a hosting account for the new domain and installed a fresh copy of WordPress.

The new installation should be completely blank before migration begins.

Verify Both Domains in Google Search Console

Google needs to know that you own both domains before you can submit a site move.

I verified:

  • hannahmarie.beauty
  • makeupartistry.studio

Use Domain Property verification whenever possible. This covers:

  • http and https
  • www and non-www
  • Subdomains

Configure Cloudflare DNS

The new domain must already be live before migration.

I confirmed:

  • Domain added to Cloudflare
  • DNS records pointed to the new hosting server
  • SSL active

Phase 2: Migrating the WordPress Site

Once the foundation is ready, the actual migration is straightforward.

Install WPVivid on Both Sites

Install WPVivid on:

  • The original live site
  • The new WordPress installation

Run WPVivid Auto Migration

On the new site:

  1. Generate an Auto-Migration key

On the old site:

  1. Enter the migration key
  2. Select Clone then Transfer

WPVivid handled:

  • Files
  • Database
  • Themes and plugins
  • Media
  • URL replacements

When the migration finished, the new site was fully functional.

Phase 3: SEO Safeguards After Migration

Moving the site is only half the job. The most important step is making sure Google understands the change.

Step 1: Configure a Proper 301 Redirect

A 301 redirect tells search engines the site has permanently moved and transfers SEO authority to the new domain.

I added a redirect rule to the .htaccess file on the old domain server.

Example:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hannahmarie\.beauty [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.hannahmarie\.beauty
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://makeupartistry.studio/$1 [R=301,L]

Roadblock: Redirect Chain Problems

My first redirect attempt created a redirect chain:

http://hannahmarie.beauty
→ https://hannahmarie.beauty
→ https://makeupartistry.studio

Google prefers a single redirect.

Cause

Hostinger had Force HTTPS enabled in the hosting panel.

This setting ran before the .htaccess rule and created a two-step redirect.

Fix

I disabled Force HTTPS in Hostinger so the .htaccess redirect could handle everything.

After that the redirect became:

http://hannahmarie.beauty
→ https://makeupartistry.studio

Step 2: Use Google’s Change of Address Tool

After confirming the redirect worked correctly, I used the Change of Address tool in Google Search Console.

This tool tells Google the entire site moved to a new domain.

However, validation kept failing.

Roadblock: Google Change of Address Validation Failed

All redirect tests passed, but Google still reported validation errors.

The problem turned out to be Cloudflare.

Cause: Cloudflare AI Bot Blocking

Cloudflare includes a feature called:

Instruct AI bot traffic with robots.txt

This feature automatically blocks AI training crawlers.

One of the blocked crawlers was:

Google-Extended

This crawler is used by Google’s Change of Address validation system.

Blocking it prevented Google from confirming the migration.

Fix

In Cloudflare:

  1. Go to Security → Bots
  2. Find Instruct AI bot traffic with robots.txt
  3. Disable the setting
  4. Purge Cloudflare cache

After disabling this feature, the Change of Address tool validated immediately.

Verify the Migration Worked

After validation:

  • Redirects worked correctly
  • Search Console accepted the change
  • Rankings remained stable

The migration was complete.

Key Lessons From This Migration

Always Test Your Redirects

Use a redirect checker to confirm a single 301 redirect.

Multiple redirects can cause SEO problems and validation failures.

Problems Often Exist Outside WordPress

The biggest issues came from:

  • Hosting settings
  • Cloudflare configuration
  • DNS behavior

Not WordPress itself.

New Security Features Can Break SEO Tools

Modern hosting and security tools often include AI protection features.

These can interfere with legitimate search engine tools even when they claim no SEO impact.

Always check robots.txt and bot settings during a migration.

Move Slowly and Verify Everything

Website migrations can be stressful, but careful verification at each step prevents ranking losses.

Following this process allowed us to rebrand the site and keep our search visibility intact.