FREE GUIDE / WEBFLOW TO ASTRO

Move the site.
Verify the whole system.

A practical starting guide for developers migrating a content-led Webflow site to Astro. Use it to plan discovery, preserve URLs and decide what needs rebuilding.

This is a planning guide, not an automatic migration script. Authentication, commerce, complex localization and business-critical workflows need separate scoping. Check your fit first.

1. Inventory what exists

Combine a crawl, the sitemap, your CMS export, analytics and Search Console. A sitemap alone can miss old URLs that still receive visits or have external links. Record each page’s layout, title, description, canonical, structured data, images and important interactions.

List platform services separately: forms, search, automations, authentication, payments, cookie controls, analytics and CRM handoffs. Record the owner and a repeatable acceptance check for each one. Keep a recoverable copy of content, assets and configuration before changing anything.

2. Decide how editors will work

Astro is not a replacement editing interface. Choose between repository-based content and a CMS according to who edits, how drafts are previewed and who approves publication. Prototype one realistic page, including rich text, references and images, before committing to the complete content model.

• Map each source field to its destination and document empty-value behavior.
• Resolve references with stable identifiers rather than assuming slugs are unique.
• Preserve multi-reference ordering where it affects the page.
• Test imported links, embeds, alt text and images inside rich text.
• Reconcile counts and sample relationships; equal record counts alone do not prove parity.

3. Build a representative template

Start with a page that exercises the difficult parts of the site, not only the homepage. Compare desktop and mobile layouts, long headings, empty optional fields and loading errors. Use Astro’s interactive islands only where needed, while testing keyboard navigation, focus states and reduced-motion behavior.

Do not assume exported scripts behave the same after the move. Document initialization order, navigation assumptions, consent dependencies and third-party domains. Test each form all the way to its receiving system, including duplicates and errors.

4. Preserve useful addresses

Keep working URLs unchanged when practical. For each moved page, choose one relevant destination and test a direct permanent redirect. If a removed page has no replacement, an intentional 404 or 410 may be more honest than redirecting it to the homepage.

Check your redirect map for duplicate sources, loops and chains. Then verify the actual host configuration: status codes, trailing slashes, encoded paths and query-string behavior can differ from a spreadsheet. The free checker does not crawl destinations or install rules.

5. Review on staging

Keep preview URLs out of search without mistaking noindex for access control. Review titles, descriptions, canonicals, robots rules, sitemap coverage and structured data. Compare behavior and content against the source, not just whether the build passes.

• Test forms, CRM delivery, consent and analytics with a documented QA plan.
• Inspect meaningful pages and templates on actual desktop and mobile browsers.
• Confirm editorial preview, permissions and publish-to-live behavior.
• Record unresolved gaps with an owner; never turn missing evidence into a pass.

6. Launch with a rollback plan

Agree on a content freeze, final export, launch owner and rollback criteria. Recheck the final build and redirect map before switching traffic. Keep the previous deployment and configuration recoverable. After launch, inspect errors, indexing, traffic and conversions against the saved baseline, accounting for consent and low-volume windows.

Search rankings are not guaranteed. An initial successful request does not prove every page, integration or event is working. Continue checking the outcomes that matter to your business.

Keep planning

Estimate the work · Use the launch checklist · Astro migration documentation · Google’s site-move guidance

Want help with discovery, implementation or the whole move? Discuss your migration with Everbase. These resources are free to use with your own team or any partner.