CMS migration checklist: content, URLs and publishing

Inventory the content that must keep working

List the page types, reusable content, media, downloads, forms and relationships in the existing site. Give each an owner and a proposed destination. Include content that is linked from campaigns or customer documents even if it is rarely visited. Decide which material will move, be merged, remain archived or be removed. A migration count is useful only when the team agrees what belongs in it. Keep this inventory separate from a list of page designs.

Describe the publishing workflow before choosing the CMS

Record who can write, review, translate, schedule, publish and reverse a change. Include external contributors and the people responsible for maintaining reusable content. Ask shortlisted providers to demonstrate the same workflow with a representative item. A permission label such as editor does not establish which actions that person may take. Check the selected edition, account and implementation rather than assuming every advertised capability is part of the proposal.

Model relationships and required fields

Identify which information is a page, which is a reusable record and how records connect. A staff biography reused in several places should not become unrelated copies without a deliberate reason. Define the required fields, allowed values, images, translations and reference behaviour. In a headless implementation, agree the content contract used by the front end and the preview that editors will actually see. Publishing a record and deploying its consuming website may be separate operations.

Preserve a deliberate URL map

Collect the existing public URLs and decide the intended destination for each important page. Google’s site-move guidance recommends preparing URL mapping and redirects and monitoring the move. Put this work into the migration scope before launch. Check that a changed URL reaches the intended replacement rather than a generic homepage. Update internal links and the sitemap to the retained destinations. A redirect can help users and crawlers find moved content, but no implementation guarantees unchanged search performance.

Rehearse the import and verify the result

Choose a representative content sample, including a linked item, a rich-text section, a media asset and a document download. Import it into an approved environment and compare the result with the inventory. Review missing references, duplicated records, headings, image descriptions, formatting and attachments. Decide how an import can be repeated without creating uncontrolled duplicates. Keep the source export and the reconciliation results so the team can explain what moved and what still needs attention.

Test the customer-facing experience

Check the normal visitor task on a narrow phone, a tablet and a desktop. Include keyboard access, an important form, a document download, navigation and search if it is part of the site. Use synthetic submissions in an authorised test environment. Inspect the pages that are meant to be public for working links, canonical destinations and indexability; keep preview and account areas private as intended. A good-looking preview does not establish that the production routes and publishing settings are correct.

Plan operations and rollback

Name the people responsible for hosting, updates, extensions, credentials, backups, monitoring and support. Record how a failed publication or deployment is reversed and what happens to changes made during the move. Agree the final import window, acceptance checks and the decision owner. Include training and the first operating period in the rollout plan. An open-source licence or a hosted subscription does not remove every maintenance task; the retained arrangement needs an accountable owner.

Use the comparison that matches the implementation

Compare WordPress and WordPress.com, Drupal and Joomla or Ghost and WordPress.com for their different publishing arrangements. For structured delivery, compare Contentful and Strapi or Sanity and Contentful. Enterprise teams can explore Adobe Experience Manager and Sitecore or Optimizely and Kentico. Keep the inventory, URL map and tested requirements with your comparison scorecard.

Frequently asked questions