Out of all of the plugins we install one our WordPress websites, the SEO plugin is supposed to be the kind that is set in stone and that we will never change again. Unfortunately, sometimes, as the website grows, some missing features that were not a problem before can really slow down the growth of a website.
For me, The SEO Framework was missing a feature that I realized was extremely important and so I decided to research how to migrate my existing Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions to the All in One SEO Pack.
There are a lot of SEO Optimization WordPress plugins out there to migrate from and to and this method should cover the majority of the ones that are actively maintained. Just follow the steps established in this guide and you will have concluded your transition in no time and will be able to enjoy the benefits of your new plugin.
Back up your database
It can be tempting to just start in order to be done with it as soon as possible but suggesting that would make me a terrible person. Please ensure you have copies of your entire WordPress website before proceeding with this tutorial. You never know what can go wrong and I don’t want to receive mean emails in my inbox. So please, back up your website, and while you’re at it, make sure you have back up procedures for every important document on your computer. Backups are important.
Install the Migration Plugin
Fortunately enough, someone thought of creating a plugin that converts the data generated by multiple SEO plugins/themes to other multiple SEO plugins/themes. This plugin is called SEO Data Transporter and is available for free on the WordPress plugin repository.
For your information, here is the list of plugins and themes that the SEO Data Transporter plugin can migrate SEO data from and to:
Supported Themes
- Builder
- Catalyst
- Frugal
- Genesis
- Headway
- Hybrid
- Thesis 1.x
- WooFramework
Supported Plugins
- Add Meta Tags
- All in One SEO Pack
- Greg’s High Performance SEO
- Headspace2
- Infinite SEO
- Jetpack Advanced SEO
- Meta SEO Pack
- Platinum SEO
- Praison SEO
- SEO Title Tag
- SEO Ultimate
- The SEO Framework
- Yoast SEO
If the plugin you have and the one you want to migrate to is in this list, you are in luck. If not, well you may have to contact the support to see if they could update their plugin to support your plugin or if your plugin does not use the same kind of data as a supported plugin use.
About SEO Data Transporter, we can now simply install and activate it before following the next step.
Analyze before Migrating
Find the dashboard of the SEO Data Transporter plugin under the Settings tab of your WordPress Admin Dashboard. Once you are there, we want to choose the platform of origin of the SEO Data we want to migrate from and the platform of destination that we want to migrate to.
In my case, The SEO Framework is the origin and All in One SEO Pack is the destination. By the way, your new SEO plugin SHOULD NOT be installed at this point.
Click on “Analyze” to get an idea of the data that the SEO Data Transporter plugin will be available to export in the new plugin.
If you are satisfied with the results of the analysis, you can proceed and click on “Convert”.
Changing plugins !
The first thing we want to do now is deactivating the SEO plugin that we are phasing out of our WordPress website.
Once this is done, we can proceed to download and activate our new SEO plugin, in my case, All in One SEO Pack:
Verifying our Information
Now, all that is left to do to complete this migration is making sure that our articles did keep the information we were moving.
In my case, all is good. The article I wrote about How to send Instagram DMs from your computer still has its Meta Title and its Meta Description, as well as many other articles that I set up using The SEO Framework.
Finally, the last final step consists of deleting your old plugin to not bloat your server with unnecessary files, to deactivate and delete SEO Data Transporter and configure and enjoy your new WordPress SEO Plugin !
Why did I migrate to All in One SEO Pack from The SEO Framework ?
I used a lot of SEO plugins on various websites since I’m managing WordPress websites circa 2011. From Jetpack to Yoast to The SEO Framework to now All in One SEO Pack. The reason I moved away from Yoast a few months ago is because of how bloated and invasive the plugin has became. Until now, I thought I found solace with The SEO Framework but realized a few days ago that Schema Markup was a Premium feature.
Now, I have nothing against premium plugins, in fact I bought numerous themes and plugins over the years and am currently rocking Elementor Pro, Essential Addons Pro and Short Pixel Premium on this website, but the only feature that was interesting for me in the premium version of The SEO Framework was this Schema Markup feature, which is free in numerous other SEO plugins. Not only do I save money by migrating to this new plugin that contains a very important feature for me but if I ever decide to buy the Premium of All in One SEO Pack, I will get a ton more promising features.
Conclusion
And that pretty much wraps this article. I hope this guide helped you migrate to your new favorite SEO plugin. By facilitating this migration, I’m hoping to drive a more competitive environment in the field of SEO plugins for WordPress. There is this big misconception that once you choose an SEO plugins, you are pretty much not going to change it during the life of your website but as I said, this is a misconception and you can definitely migrate redirects, meta titles and description from one plugin to another within the same website.
Hope it helped. As always, feel free to let me know in the comments down below if you have any questions or you can also reach out to me by email!
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Best,
