Troubleshooting common issues after an AI to WordPress conversion

Expect a short list of small issues

No conversion between two different systems is perfect on the first pass, and that is completely normal. After converting an AI-built site to WordPress, I always expect a short list of small issues. The good news is that almost all of them belong to a few familiar categories, and most are solved in minutes in the editor or with a plugin.

In this guide I describe the issues I see most often and how I approach them, in the order I usually check them.

Layout differences on mobile

The most common observation is that a section looks slightly different on a phone. Columns may stack in a different order, spacing may be tighter, or a long headline may wrap unexpectedly. In the block editor you can adjust column stacking, padding and font size per block. For global spacing, I adjust the values in the theme settings so all pages benefit at once.

I test at a few common widths rather than one device. If something only breaks at an unusual width, it is often acceptable or solved with one small CSS rule.

Fonts that look different

If the typography looks different, the font is usually not loaded the same way as on the original site. I check whether the font files are present, prefer self-hosting them in the theme and register them in the theme settings. Self-hosting is also faster and avoids privacy concerns with external font services.

Missing or oversized images

Images normally arrive in the media library during conversion. When an image is missing, the original often loaded it from an external storage service that requires a login or a temporary link. I download it manually and upload it to WordPress. Oversized images are fixed by enabling automatic resizing and compression, so pages stay fast.

Menus and links pointing to old addresses

Sometimes menu items or buttons still point to the old domain or to a preview address. I search the database for the old domain and replace it carefully with the new one, using a search-and-replace tool that handles serialised data correctly. Then I rebuild the main menu in the site editor so it uses internal WordPress links.

Forms and interactive features do not work

If a form or calculator does nothing after conversion, that is expected: backends and server logic are not converted. I replace forms with a form plugin, and other features with a suitable plugin or a small custom solution. It is worth listing these features before the project starts so they are planned rather than discovered.

Pages not appearing in search

When pages are slow to appear in search results, I check the basics in this order. Is the page set to be indexed and not blocked in robots.txt? Does the raw HTML contain the correct title, canonical and language attribute? Is the page listed in the sitemap, and is the sitemap submitted for the exact domain variant, with or without www? Do old URLs redirect directly to the new ones?

If all of that is correct, patience is the next step. Search engines need time to recrawl and re-evaluate a migrated site. Requesting indexing for a few key pages in Search Console can speed this up, but constant changes to titles and structure slow it down.

Performance lower than expected

A freshly converted WordPress site without caching can be slower than the original. I enable page caching, an object cache if the host supports it, image optimisation and a CDN. I also remove plugins that are not really needed. After these steps, converted sites are usually as fast or faster than before.

When to ask for help

Most issues on this list are simple to solve yourself. If something affects payments, user data or security, I recommend involving an experienced WordPress developer. For everything else, a calm, step-by-step approach works best: identify the category, apply the standard fix, test, and move on. A few small glitches are part of every migration and say nothing about the quality of the final site.