A redesigned WordPress page can look right and still tell search engines to prefer its old address or a staging URL. Check the canonical on the public page, then compare it with the redirects and sitemap before you call the launch finished.
Start with a few pages that represent the site
Pick the homepage, a service page, a post, and a page whose slug changed. In a private window, open each final URL and confirm it loads successfully. View the page source and search for rel="canonical". Record the URL you opened, the declared canonical, and the URL you expected. Also check the document response headers in DevTools if your server or CDN can add a canonical there.
Follow the target before changing settings
Open the declared canonical and check where it lands. For example, if your redesigned service page lives at /web-design/ but declares /website-design/, and the old address redirects back to the new one, the redirect and canonical point in opposite directions. If the new page is the preferred version, update the declaration to its final URL. A deliberately consolidated duplicate can still point to a different preferred page.
Find which layer emitted the wrong URL
If the problem affects one page, check its SEO plugin’s canonical override. If it affects every page in a template, check the template and any custom code that adds head tags. Look for two conflicting declarations before adding another. Fix the layer that generated the wrong value, clear the affected page cache, and repeat the source and response-header checks while logged out.
Verify the signals agree
Check that the sitemap and internal links use the preferred URL. In Search Console, use URL Inspection to compare the user-declared canonical with Google’s selected canonical for the indexed version, where available. A live check helps confirm what Google can fetch now. The indexed report reflects a prior crawl, so revisit it after Google processes the change. See Google’s guide to canonical URLs.
If you need a second set of eyes on a redesign, book a website consultation and bring a list of the URLs that changed.