Playbook: Migrate off a comparison-table plugin without losing rankings

Playbook: Migrate off a comparison-table plugin without losing rankings

Swapping a table plugin (say AAWP-style to a JSON-driven one) usually tanks the page because the new markup breaks your Product schema and the old table HTML was indexed verbatim.

Do it in order:
— Export every table's row data to CSV first. Plugin databases are not portable; the shortcode is useless once deactivated.
— Render BOTH plugins on a staging URL, diff the DOM. New plugin must keep the same column order and visible text.
— Re-map your affiliate links inside the new plugin BEFORE switch, not after. A 24h window of dead buttons kills the page's conversion trust.
— Keep the old shortcode aliased to the new one for 30 days so cached posts don't render raw [table id=].
— Re-validate schema in Rich Results Test on 5 sample pages.

Gotcha nobody mentions: most table plugins inject lazy-loaded HTML that Googlebot renders but AI crawlers (GPTBot, no JS) don't see. If AI traffic matters, force server-side render.

Bottom line: CSV export + DOM diff + link re-map first, then deactivate. Never the reverse.