Rank Math vs Yoast: the migration that cost me a weekend
Month 1: New gardening site, default to Yoast like everyone. The green-light system trained me to stuff keywords for the dopamine hit. Embarrassing in hindsight.
Month 4: I switched to Rank Math — free schema, more granular controls, and it didn't nag me to repeat my keyword nine times. The migration tool moved my meta data... mostly.
The turn: it silently dropped canonical tags on 30 posts. Two weeks later Search Console flagged duplicate-content warnings. Traffic dipped 8% before I caught it. Migrating SEO plugins is never as clean as the tool promises.
Month 6: once stable, Rank Math's built-in schema (FAQ, How-To, Product) got me rich results Yoast charged extra for. CTR on those pages rose from 3.1% to 4.6%.
The takeaway: both rank pages fine — the plugin doesn't rank for you. Yoast's hand-holding suits beginners; Rank Math's free schema and control suit anyone past the basics. But NEVER trust a migration tool blindly — audit canonicals and redirects the day after, or you'll bleed quietly for weeks.
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Rank Math vs Yoast: the migration that cost me a weekend
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