Short answer: moving a WordPress site from Elementor to Breakdance is a rebuild of the design layer, not an automatic conversion. Content, URLs, SEO fields, forms and plugins that store data stay where they are; every page template is rebuilt in Breakdance, and each page is checked against the original before the switch. Done page by page on a staging copy, with the same URLs and a before-and-after speed check, rankings stay where they were and the site usually gets noticeably lighter.
We moved our own new builds from Elementor to Breakdance in 2023 and have migrated client sites since. This is the process we follow and what we check at each step.
Can Elementor pages be converted to Breakdance automatically?
Not in a way we would put in front of customers. Elementor stores each page as its own tree of widgets with its own settings; Breakdance uses different elements, a global design system and its own templates. Tools that map one tree to the other exist, but the result carries over the old structure, the old spacing hacks and every one-off style. The gain from moving comes from rebuilding with a clean design system, so we rebuild templates and reuse the content, images and copy as they are.
What stays and what gets rebuilt
| Part of the site | What happens |
|---|---|
| Posts, pages, text, images | Stay in WordPress. Page content is moved into Breakdance layouts; blog posts usually keep their block content unchanged |
| URLs and permalinks | Stay exactly the same, so no redirects are needed for existing pages |
| SEO titles, descriptions, schema | Stay in the SEO plugin (Yoast or Rank Math) and keep working |
| Header, footer, global styles | Rebuilt once in Breakdance as templates and a design system |
| Page layouts and landing pages | Rebuilt in Breakdance, one template per page type where possible |
| Forms | Rebuilt with the Breakdance form builder or kept in the existing form plugin; submissions and email routing retested |
| Elementor add-on plugins | Removed once nothing uses them; sliders, popups and tables are native in Breakdance |
| WooCommerce | Products, orders and customers untouched; shop, product, cart and checkout templates rebuilt |
The process, step by step
- Inventory. Crawl the live site, list every URL, template, form, popup and plugin, and export current field data from Search Console so there is a baseline.
- Staging copy. Clone the site to staging. Nothing changes on the live site until launch day.
- Design system first. Colours, typography, spacing and buttons go into Breakdance global settings, so every page shares them instead of carrying its own styles.
- Templates. Header, footer, single post, archive, and the page types the site actually uses.
- Pages. Each page is rebuilt and compared side by side with the original on desktop and mobile.
- Plugins out. Elementor and its add-ons are deactivated on staging to confirm nothing still depends on them.
- Checks. Every URL returns 200, titles and descriptions match, forms deliver, analytics and consent still fire.
- Launch. Staging replaces live in a quiet hour, caches are cleared, and the crawl is repeated on the live domain.
- Follow-up. Search Console and field Core Web Vitals are checked after one, two and four weeks.
How to keep rankings
Rankings drop after a rebuild for a handful of reasons, and all of them are avoidable. URLs change without redirects. Titles and descriptions get lost because they were typed into a builder widget instead of the SEO plugin. Headings change level, so the page says something different to search engines. Content is trimmed during the redesign. Internal links point at pages that no longer exist. We check each of these against the inventory before launch, and we keep the copy unchanged during the migration itself; content improvements come afterwards, one page at a time, so their effect can be measured.
What changes after the move
On like-for-like rebuilds we have measured pages two to three times smaller than their Elementor originals before any caching or optimisation plugin was added, mostly because Breakdance produces fewer nested wrappers and far less unused CSS. Sites typically drop from eight to twelve plugins to three or four. The editor is faster for the team, and plugin updates stop breaking layouts. We describe the reasons in more detail in why we moved from Elementor to Breakdance.
When staying on Elementor is the right call
- The site is fast enough, passes Core Web Vitals and the team is happy editing it.
- A redesign is planned within a year anyway; migrate as part of that instead.
- The site depends on an Elementor-only add-on with no equivalent, and rebuilding that feature is not worth it yet.
A migration is a design-layer rebuild, so it is priced like one: by the number of templates and unique pages, not by the number of posts. You can see a rebuild we did in the Retușescu case study, and how we build WordPress sites on our WordPress website service. If you want us to look at your site first, send us the address.
Frequently asked questions
Not cleanly. The two builders store layouts differently, so automatic conversion carries over the old structure and styling. A rebuild of the templates, reusing the existing content, gives the performance gains that justify the move.
Not if URLs stay the same, titles and descriptions live in the SEO plugin, headings and content are kept, and every page is checked before launch. Most ranking drops after rebuilds come from changed URLs or lost metadata.
It depends on the number of templates and unique pages rather than posts. A typical company site with a dozen unique layouts takes a few weeks including testing, with the live site untouched until launch.
On our like-for-like rebuilds, Breakdance pages were two to three times smaller than the Elementor originals before caching, mainly because of cleaner HTML and less unused CSS. Real speed also depends on hosting, images and scripts.
Products, orders and customers stay in WooCommerce. Only the shop, product, cart and checkout templates are rebuilt in Breakdance and then tested with real orders.
