- Inventory the source Site Pages library and note every web part dependency.
- Migrate supporting assets (images, documents, lists) to the destination first.
- Copy the pages themselves, preserving layout and metadata.
- Fix broken web part links on the destination copies.
- Republish and spot-check rendering, including news rollups.
That quick list covers the shape of the job. The detail below covers where it actually goes wrong, because copying a Site Pages library is deceptively different from copying a document library.
Why Site Pages libraries do not migrate like document libraries
A modern SharePoint page is not a self-contained file. It is a JSON canvas of web parts, and several common web parts (Highlighted Content, News, Quick Links, embedded images) store references as absolute or relative URLs pointing back to the source site. A file-level copy tool that treats a page like any other document will move the .aspx file successfully and still leave a page full of broken tiles, missing thumbnails, and empty rollups on the destination site.
Site owners often discover this only after the migration is declared complete, when a user reports that half the intranet homepage is blank. Planning for it up front avoids the rework.
Step 1: Inventory before you touch anything
Open Site contents on the source site and select Site Pages. For each page you plan to migrate, record:
- The page layout (Article, Home page, or a custom layout from a page template).
- Every web part on the page and what it points to (a list, a library, an image, another page).
- Publishing status: draft, scheduled, or published.
- Whether the page appears in a News web part rollup elsewhere on the site or hub.
A five-minute inventory spreadsheet before you start saves hours of "why is this tile empty" troubleshooting after the migration is supposedly finished.
Step 2: Migrate supporting assets first, not last
Copy over the images, documents, and custom lists that pages reference before copying the pages themselves. If the destination site already has an Images library and a Site Assets library, decide whether migrated content lands in the existing libraries or in new ones, and be consistent across every page so links can be repointed with a predictable pattern.
Step 3: Copy the pages
ShareMaster's Clone Master copies the Site Pages library between sites, including layout, publishing state, and author metadata, whether the destination is in the same tenant or a different one. This preserves the page structure rather than flattening it to plain HTML, which is what happens with several generic file-copy approaches.
Step 4: Fix web part links
After the copy, open each migrated page in edit mode. Check every web part that references content: images, Quick Links, embedded documents, and Highlighted Content queries scoped to a specific library. Update the source references to point at the destination library paths. This step cannot be fully automated because web part configuration is stored as JSON with source-specific GUIDs and paths baked in, so a manual pass (or a scripted find-and-replace against known patterns) is required.
If your migration also involves broken links across other content types, not just pages, see the guide to finding and fixing broken SharePoint URLs for a systematic approach.
Step 5: Republish and verify
Republish each page after fixing links, then view it as a standard user rather than as a site owner, since owners sometimes see cached or permission-elevated content that masks a broken reference. Confirm that:
- Images render, not broken-image placeholders.
- Quick Links point to destination locations, not 404s on the old site.
- Any News web part on the destination home page picks up migrated news posts.
- Page metadata (author, publish date) survived the copy rather than resetting to the migration date.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I copy a single SharePoint page without moving the whole Site Pages library?
Yes. Clone Master can target an individual page or a filtered subset rather than the entire library, which is useful when only a handful of pages need to move to a new site.
Do News post rollups update automatically after migration?
Not always. A News web part rollup queries pages by site or hub association at render time, so a migrated page usually appears once its site association is correct, but scheduled or cached rollups may need a manual refresh to pick up the change immediately.
What happens to page comments and likes during a copy?
Comments and likes are stored separately from the page content and are generally not preserved by a page-level copy. If comment history matters for compliance or record-keeping, export it separately before migrating.