Service · Websites and web applications

CMS migration

A migration is a project whose success is invisible: if all goes well, visitors notice nothing except the new look. If it goes wrong, pages that brought traffic for years vanish, links in old emails hit errors and search engines start from scratch. Take an architecture practice in Kranj with a site on an old Joomla install: a hundred projects, three languages and a pile of PDFs. It wants to move to WordPress without losing the project pages clients find through search. The key is a complete inventory and a redirect map drawn up before the switch, not after it.

Full inventory
pages, files, forms and users
Redirect map
every old URL gets a new one
Trial imports
repeated until the result is right
Monitoring
traffic and errors for weeks after go-live

Scope of the service

We migrate between WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Wix, older in-house systems and custom builds. First we establish what data the old system can actually export.

Check the scope with an engineer

Content inventory

A list of every page, file, image, form and user, not just what appears in the menu. We use the sitemap, a server scan, analytics and backlink data.

A decision for each item

Together we decide what to move, what to merge and what to retire. Old, irrelevant content need not migrate, but retired pages still get a redirect.

Migration scripts

Wherever possible content is moved by script rather than by hand, so the import can be rerun after a fix without losing days.

301 redirect map

Every old URL is mapped to a new URL or the closest relevant page. The map is checked before the site goes live.

Users and form data

User accounts, form submissions and comments where they need to be kept. Along the way we check which personal data should still be held at all under GDPR.

Switch-over and monitoring

Domain switch, a new sitemap in Search Console and tracking of errors and search traffic for several weeks afterwards.

How the work runs

A migration runs in rounds. Content is moved several times until the result is good, then frozen for a short spell.

01

Inventory and plan

We compile the full inventory and agree with you what moves, merges or goes.

02

Trial imports

Content is imported into staging, you review sample pages, we fix the scripts and rerun the import.

03

Freeze and final import

A few days before the switch, edits on the old site stop, the final import runs and the redirects are loaded.

04

Go-live and monitoring

The domain is pointed at the new system, old URLs are tested and a new sitemap is submitted. For the first weeks we watch errors and traffic closely.

What gets lost most often in migrations is PDFs, not pages. Documents in old systems tend to sit in a separate folder, outside the menu, and the inventory misses them. Yet these are often the files with the most inbound links: price lists, data sheets, press packs. We therefore build the inventory from the files on the server and from backlink data too, and give every document a redirect.

Your questions answered

Yes, most migrations come with a new look. We recommend keeping the content structure close to the old one and making big structural changes after the switch, so any problem is easier to trace.

A well-prepared migration may cause brief fluctuations, but we do not expect a lasting fall. Lasting losses almost always come from missing redirects and removed content.

Yes, though Wix offers only limited content export. Pages are usually captured by crawling and rebuilt by hand in the new structure; for blog posts and products we use whatever exports are available.

Yes, user accounts and their data can be moved. Passwords often cannot be carried over in the same form, so users get a reset link the first time they sign in.

Tell us about your migration

Let us know which system your site runs on today, roughly how many pages it has and which system you want to move to. We reply within one working day with a suggested inventory approach.

When we work
Weekdays 9:00-17:00 CET, answers the same or next working day
Calls
Video meetings, Teams and Meet both welcome

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