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/ Documentation /Migration to SureRank/ After You Migrate: Verification and Cleanup Checklist

After You Migrate: Verification and Cleanup Checklist

Once you’ve migrated, this guide walks you through verifying that everything transferred correctly, understanding why old or duplicate meta tags may still be visible, and safely uninstalling your previous SEO plugin.

Step 1: Confirm the Migration Finished

  1. Go to SureRank → Tools → Migrate to SureRank. 
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  1. If it already ran, you’ll see a “Migration Completed” notice naming the source plugin.
  2. Spot-check a handful of pages: homepage, a regular post, and one item per post type or category you use. Open each in the editor. The SureRank SEO panel’s Title, Meta Description, Robots, and Social fields should already be filled with your old values.
  3. Check site-wide defaults at SureRank →  General. Old title and description templates, separator, and social profile links should be there.
  4. Give it a minute, then check yoursite.com/surerank-sitemap.xml. SureRank auto-schedules a sitemap refresh shortly after migration completes.

Re-running migration on a page is safe if fields look blank. It won’t create duplicates.

Step 2: What Migrates Automatically, and What Doesn’t

Migrated AutomaticallyNot Migrated, Set Up Again Manually
Meta titles and descriptionsSchema / structured data (FAQ, Review, Recipe, etc.)
Robots directives (noindex, nofollow…)Robots.txt editor content
Open Graph and Twitter fieldsBreadcrumbs settings
Sitemap settings, site infoRedirects
Image SEO settingsSearch Console connection, email reports

Step 3: Why Old or Duplicate Meta Tags Might Still Show Up

Migration copies data into SureRank. It never touches or deletes anything belonging to the old plugin. In order of likelihood:

  • The old plugin is still active. SureRank’s frontend only ever reads its own surerank_settings_* fields, so it has no awareness of Yoast, Rank Math, or SEOPress meta keys at all. There’s no “which one wins” conflict. If the old plugin is still active, it independently prints its own <title>, meta description, OG tags, and schema into <head>, so both sets appear. Deactivating it fixes this immediately.
  • Schema wasn’t migrated (see Step 2). It needs to be re-added in SureRank’s Schema tab.
  • Page or CDN caching is serving a page generated before migration. Clear all caches. SureRank’s migration screen detects active cache plugins and recommends pausing them during migration for this reason.
  • Social platform caches (Facebook, X, LinkedIn). Use their debugger or inspector tools to force a re-scrape.
  • Search engine result lag. Google may show an old title or description for days. That’s normal, not a bug.

Quick check: view page source (Ctrl/Cmd+U) and search for <title>, name=”description”, and og:title. Each should appear exactly once. Two means another plugin is still active.

Step 4: Safely Removing the Old Plugin

Deactivate is not the same as delete. Deactivating stops the plugin’s output immediately but leaves its saved data untouched in the database. Deleting removes its files. Whether its data is also cleaned up depends entirely on that plugin’s own uninstall routine, not on SureRank.

Recommended order

  1. Complete Steps 1 and 2 first. Don’t remove the old plugin until key pages look right in SureRank.
  2. Deactivate it. The Migrate screen shows a one-click “Deactivate [Plugin]” prompt right after migration; this also deactivates its Pro or premium companion plugin if detected. Otherwise, deactivate manually from Plugins → Installed Plugins.
  1. Reload pages and recheck the page source for duplicate tags.
  2. Clear caches again.
  3. Once confident, delete the old plugin from Plugins → Installed Plugins if it’s no longer needed. This is optional, but it lets the plugin’s own cleanup routine run and keeps things tidy.

Quick Checklist

  • Migrate screen shows migration completed for the old plugin
  • Homepage and a few posts checked in the SureRank editor
  • Global templates and social profiles match the old setup
  • Schema, redirects, and breadcrumbs manually recreated where needed
  • Page source shows exactly one title, description, and OG tag set
  • All caches cleared
  • Old plugin deactivated
  • Social debuggers re-scraped, if needed
  • Old plugin deleted (optional)
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