Migrate SEO between plugins

What it is

Moving the SEO you already have from one plugin to another — Yoast to Rank Math, SEOPress to AISA, All in One SEO to anything else — goes through AISA, and the main road is the SEO data transfer / sync card in the Utility page. AISA is the hub: you import the old plugin's SEO into AISA, then transfer it out to the new one. Two legs, each with its own mandatory preview and its own automatic backup, and nothing is deleted from the plugin you are leaving.

What travels is the SEO by logical field — SEO title, meta description, focus keyphrase — read and written through each plugin's adapter, so AISA never needs to know two sets of meta keys. Yoast, Rank Math and SEOPress keep this data in post and term meta; All in One SEO keeps it in its own table, and stores term SEO only in its Pro version, so terms are skipped there with the reason stated.

Backup and Restore is the second road, and it is still worth knowing. Because a snapshot is taken by logical field, restoring it with a different SEO plugin active is itself a migration: back up with plugin A, switch to plugin B, restore. It moves more than the three fields the transfer handles — rotation variants, AI Search Context, slugs, image alt text — but it is an all-or-nothing restore, not a selective merge. It is also the undo for a transfer that went the way you did not want.

Where to find it

AISA → Utility. The transfer is the first card, SEO data transfer / sync; the snapshots are in SEO data backup / restore, just below.

Requirements & tier

Free, on every tier, with the administrator capability (manage_options). To write into a plugin it must be active; to read from one, its data is enough — the import works on a plugin you have already deactivated. AIOSEO term SEO needs its Pro version.

How to use

With the old plugin's data still on the site, open AISA → Utility and use Import into AISA from — the old plugin is in the list even if you have switched it off.
Run the preview, then the import. Now AISA holds the SEO.
Activate the plugin you are moving to.
Back in the same card, use Transfer AISA data to and pick it. Preview again, then run.
Check the result counts, then look at a few pages before you uninstall anything. The old plugin's data is untouched, so you can still go back.

If you would rather move everything in one shot, including rotation variants and alt text: create a backup with the old plugin active, switch plugins, then restore that snapshot.

Questions people ask

How do I migrate from Yoast to Rank Math? In two steps through AISA: import into AISA from Yoast, activate Rank Math, transfer AISA data to Rank Math. A direct plugin-to-plugin move in one step does not exist — and doing it in two is what makes the preview possible on both legs.
Will this delete my old plugin's SEO? No. Both the transfer and the restore only write into the destination; the old plugin's meta stays where it is until you uninstall it, so a rollback is always available.
Does it migrate everything? The transfer moves title, meta description and focus keyphrase, for content and terms. A Backup/Restore migration also carries rotation variants, AI Search Context, slugs and image alt text. Fields with no counterpart in the destination (plugin-specific robots or schema settings) are skipped either way.
Which one should I use? The transfer, if you want to see what changes before it changes and to fill only what is empty. The backup and restore, if you want the whole SEO state moved as one block.
Can I undo it? Yes. The transfer creates an SEO backup before writing: restoring it puts the site back exactly as it was, empty fields included.

SEO data transfer / sync: move your SEO between AISA and your SEO plugin
Backup and Restore SEO
SEO-plugin adapters: Yoast, Rank Math, SEOPress, AIOSEO
Repair invisible SEO and database maintenance