11 Things You Should Do When Inheriting a WordPress Site

Getting handed a WordPress site to manage is like inheriting a house – you never know what surprises are waiting for you. Maybe the previous owner took great care of everything, or maybe you’re about to find some issues that need your attention.

Over the years, we’ve helped many people take over WordPress sites, and we’ve noticed a clear pattern. The people who take time to check their new site carefully from the beginning avoid a lot of problems down the road.

These first few steps are crucial to make sure the site is secure, works well, and is easy to manage. But without a clear plan, it’s easy to miss important things that could hurt how your site performs or shows up in search results.

In this guide, we’ll share 11 important things you should do when inheriting a WordPress site. Let’s make sure your website is safe, running smoothly, and ready to help your project grow. 🌱

What Challenges Could You Face When Inheriting a Site?

When inheriting a WordPress site, the biggest challenges usually involve unknown setups, missing access, and potential security risks.

Many issues aren’t obvious when you first log in.

You may be dealing with unfamiliar workflows, custom themes or plugins, and settings that were configured without documentation. If the WordPress site came from another business or team, getting up to speed can take time.

Access is another common problem. A website rarely runs on WordPress alone – you’ll often need login credentials for email marketing tools, payment processors, analytics platforms, and third-party services.

If ownership or admin access is missing, even simple changes can turn into blockers.

Security is also a concern. You don’t always know how well the site was maintained before you took over. That’s why one of the first steps should be creating a full backup and running a security scan.

This helps you spot vulnerabilities early and fix them before they become bigger problems.

In the following sections, we’ll share all the things you should do when inheriting a new WordPress site. You can click the links below to jump ahead to your preferred section:

Let’s get started.

1. Get All The Passwords

When inheriting a WordPress site, the first thing you must do is gather all the usernames, passwords, and license keys associated with the site.

This includes:

• Web hosting dashboard access
• FTP / SFTP credentials
• CDN login
• Domain registrar account
• Email marketing service login
• Payment gateway or store platform logins (if applicable)
• Premium WordPress plugin and theme accounts, including license keys

We suggest scheduling a video call with the previous developer or site owners so they can walk you through where everything is stored, how the site is deployed, and any custom workflows they were using.

Now, the best way to manage all your website passwords is by using a password manager. We recommend using 1Password because it works with all your devices and allows you to store passwords in a group, share them securely, and use stronger passwords.

2. Change All Admin Passwords and Emails

Once you have received all the passwords, you need to change them right away, starting with your hosting, WordPress admin, and domain registrar accounts.

This ensures that the previous developer or site owner cannot change anything. Another thing you want to do is update all admin contact emails so that only you can reset passwords in the future.

To start, you can go to the Users » All Users page in the admin area. From here, you should edit all user profiles with Administrator access (and other user roles like Editor) to update their passwords and contact details.

Next, you need to change the WordPress site admin email address. WordPress uses it to send important website notifications, so you want to make sure the previous site owners don’t have access to this.

Simply go to the Settings » General page and enter a new email address.

WordPress will then send a confirmation email to the new address, so be sure to check your inbox and click the confirmation link to finalize the change.

3. Take Notes and Familiarize Yourself

Before making any other site changes, taking notes and familiarizing yourself with the website is vital. As you review them, you can create a simple technical audit document that includes:

• Current WordPress core version
• PHP version on the server
• Any custom code snippets

If you need help, then you can see our beginner’s guide on what WordPress is, so you have a clear picture of what you’re working with.

It’s also very important that you create a list of all plugins and what they do. It’s helpful to understand the importance and functionality of each WordPress plugin used on the website.

Additionally, you will want to list down active and inactive WordPress themes, review theme settings, and check if the site has any widgets.

Then, notes on different functionalities, features you would like to change, and anything that looks confusing or outdated.

4. Set Up an Automated Backup Solution

Backups are your first layer of defense against any online mishap. The previous site owner may have their own backup plugins set up, which may be storing backup files in one of their remote storage accounts.

You will want to set up your own backups. There are plenty of excellent WordPress backup plugins that you can choose from, including Duplicator.

We currently use Duplicator on several of our partner brand websites, so we’re sure it’s a great backup plugin to consider. For details, you can check out our complete Duplicator review.

You need to make sure that you set up your backups in a remote location like Google Drive, Dropbox, or similar.

You also need to create a complete WordPress backup before making further changes to your website. This will help you revert your website in case anything goes wrong.

5. Update User Roles and Permissions

If you are a developer working on a website, then you will need to work with your client to assign user roles and permissions to their team.

Your goal should be to limit the administrator user role to people who actually need to perform admin tasks. These tasks include things like changing the theme, installing new plugins, or adding new users to the website.

To change a user role, simply go to Users » All Users from your WordPress dashboard and edit a user profile. Next, scroll down to the ‘Role’ section and select the user role you wish to assign.

If you are working on your own site, then you will need to review user access. Create a new user account for your authors if required.

If there are older author and editor accounts that you will not be working with, then you need to edit those user accounts and change their email address and password. See our guide on how to disable user accounts without deleting them.

6. Run Security and Performance Scans

Next, you need to make sure that your new WordPress website is secure and performing well.

For security scans, we recommend using Sucuri, the best WordPress security plugin on the market. It allows you to easily scan your website for malicious code, security threats, and vulnerabilities.

You can see our ultimate WordPress security guide for more details.

For performance, you can use any of the online website speed test tools.

We recommend using the IsItWP website speed test tool, which is easy to use and gives you a detailed overview of your website speed.

It is also important to check that caching is configured properly.

Many WordPress hosting companies like Bluehost and SiteGround offer built-in caching solutions that you can turn on from your hosting account. You can also use a WordPress caching plugin to improve your website’s speed instantly.

If the site is not running a CDN, then you should consider using a CDN service. Please see our guide on why you should use a CDN to learn more.

For more tips and tricks, you may want to see our ultimate guide to boost WordPress speed & performance.

7. Check for Proper Tracking and SEO Integration

If you have inherited the ownership of a new website, then the old website owner may have transferred the Google Analytics property to you.

A lot of website owners simply add the Google Analytics code directly to their WordPress theme files (like header.php). This code disappears as soon as you update the theme or install a new one.

Make sure that Google Analytics is properly installed on the website by either using MonsterInsights or by adding the tracking code to the WordPress theme.

Similarly, the previous site owner may have also transferred the Google Search Console property to you.

Make sure that your site has XML Sitemaps in place for the Search Console. You may also want to look at the Google Search Console reports to make sure there are no crawling issues or errors on the site.

We recommend using All in One SEO (AIOSEO) because it is the best SEO plugin for WordPress. You can easily optimize your site for search engines without hiring an expert.

At WPBeginner, we highly recommend AIOSEO. We also rely on it for many tasks, like managing our XML sitemaps, meta descriptions, title tags, and OpenGraph settings for platforms like Facebook and X. If you’d like more details, see our full AIOSEO review.

8. Implement Version Control and/or a Staging Site

If you are a developer, then it is highly recommended that you implement version control for the site. It is fairly easy to use GitHub or BitBucket.

If you are not a developer, then at the very least, we recommend setting up a WordPress staging site that ensures that you have a stable testing environment before pushing things live. We recommend this step for all users.

If you are not comfortable setting this up yourself, then SiteGround, a managed WordPress hosting provider, offers a staging environment and git version control integration.

Other small business hosting providers like Bluehost also offer staging features at affordable prices.

9. Run a Website Cleanup

Now that you have familiarized yourself with the new website, it is best to clean out all the unnecessary things. Delete all inactive plugins and themes, along with all unneeded user accounts.

You also need to log in to your WordPress database to clean it up. Some plugins leave their database tables behind even after you delete them.

If you notice tables named after plugins you just removed, it is best to delete them – but only after you’ve confirmed a recent backup is available.

You can read our beginner’s guide to WordPress database management to learn how to optimize the WordPress database safely.

10. Review Plugin Settings

A typical WordPress website uses several plugins that may still be referring to old owners. If you have taken ownership of a website, then you will want to change this.

For example, the contact form plugin on the website may still be sending notifications to old email addresses. Or, SEO plugins may still be pointing to previous owners’ social media profiles, knowledge graph settings, or business information.

You can discover some of these things by looking at the website and testing all its features. Plus, you can review plugin settings and update them if needed.

11. Upgrade Your Hosting Service

After running a website speed test, if your website is still slow despite using caching and basic optimizations (like image compression and a CDN), then it is likely time to upgrade your hosting.

If it is a client website, then your performance tests should help you convince the client to move. If you own the website yourself, then you just need to choose the right web host.

We recommend using SiteGround or Bluehost as they are some of the biggest hosting companies and officially recommended WordPress hosting providers.

If your website has outgrown shared hosting, then you may want to consider using a managed WordPress hosting service like Hostinger and Rocket.net.

See our guide on how to move WordPress to a new host for step-by-step instructions on how to move your website.

FAQs: What Should I Do When Inheriting a WordPress Site

Still have questions? Here are some common concerns people have when taking over a WordPress site:

What should I do first when inheriting a WordPress site?

Start by gathering all the important login credentials, such as web hosting, domain, WordPress admin, email, and so on. Then, update all passwords and make sure the recovery emails point to you. This ensures you have full control moving forward.

How can I make sure the site is secure?

Run a full security scan using a security plugin. It’s also a good idea to review the site’s existing security setup, update everything (WordPress core, plugins, and themes), and keep an eye out for anything suspicious.

What tools can help me manage the site more easily?

You’ll want to set up a few essentials:

• Backups: Use a tool like Duplicator or UpdraftPlus
• SEO: Try All in One SEO for search optimization
• Performance: A reliable host like Bluehost or SiteGround can help keep things fast and stable

These tools will make day-to-day management way easier.

How often should I back up the website?

That depends on how often the site gets updated. As a rule of thumb, back up at least as often as you publish new content, receive new orders, or form submissions. For most blogs and business sites, daily or weekly automated backups work well.

How can I boost the performance of the site I inherited?

Start with a speed test using tools like PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or the IsItWP speed test tool so you can see what’s slowing the site down. Then, enable caching, optimize images, and consider switching to a better hosting plan if the current one is slowing things down.

Next Step: Grow Your WordPress Website

We hope that this article offered some clear steps on what you should do when inheriting a WordPress site. Next, you may also want to see our other helpful guides on:

• How to increase your blog traffic (proven tips)
• How to increase pageviews and dwell time in WordPress
• Important metrics to measure on the WordPress site
• Ultimate WordPress SEO guide for beginners
• How to set up WordPress form tracking in Google Analytics

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