Hello,
I understand your concern about setting up Rank Math on your new website while your current website is still live and using Yoast SEO. It’s great that you are planning ahead for the migration process.
Since your new website is currently in maintenance mode and not accessible to the public, you can go ahead and set up Rank Math on it without affecting the performance of your current website using Yoast SEO.
Rank Math provides a seamless migration process from other SEO plugins like Yoast SEO, so when you are ready to launch your new website with the .de domain, you can easily migrate the SEO settings from Yoast to Rank Math following our migration guide.
If you encounter any issues during the setup or migration process, please feel free to reach out to our support team for assistance.
Thank you for reaching out with your concerns!
Best regards,
Rank Math Support Team
Sources:
The #1 WordPress SEO Plugin in 2023 – Rank Math
How to Migrate from Rank Math to Yoast » Rank Math
Migrating from Yoast SEO to Rank Math SEO » Rank Math
Rank Math Plugin Requirements for WordPress Websites
Rank Math New Features – Roll Back and Beta Testing
Thanks! So I do not have to worry, if on a single page is the robot meta is set to “follow”?
Right?
Hello,
Thank you for your patience.
There is no unique way of treating a staging site that is different than the production site. Once you have pushed your site to live, all the Rank Math settings you have made or imported from your staging site will still be intact.
The basic difference would be the indexing option, which you can easily set using the WordPress option to discourage search engines from indexing your site in WordPress Dashboard > Settings > Reading

Once that option is checked, Rank Math respectfully adds the noindex on your site so it won’t get indexed.
You won’t, however, need to enable some modules such as Sitemap, 404 Monitor & Analytics on the staging area since they won’t be useful.
Hope that helps.
Hello,
Since we did not hear back from you for 15 days, we are assuming that you found the solution. We are closing this support ticket.
If you still need assistance or any other help, please feel free to open a new support ticket, and we will be more than happy to assist.
Thank you.