Safest Route to Get from Drupal to Wordpress
-
Hi all,
I have a prospective client who currently has a Drupal 7 site and they are interested in converting it to Wordpress (or simply building it new in Wordpress) and changing CMS. They would like to update the look of their site to make it a little more modern, but they are very concerned about preserving their SEO and rank, etc so they plan to keep the structure and urls, etc. pretty identical to what they have now with only minor cosmetic changes for the moment.
I want to find the best and most economical route for them to take for a change like this. If an actual conversion/migration is the way to go, then I also want to help them find a professional developer they can trust to do the job correctly as I am not a Drupal person.
I guess my question concerns what would be the safest and most economical route to preserve the SEO and rank, etc. that they have now?
1) Would that be an actual migration and conversion of their current site into a custom WP theme that's structured as closely as possible to the site currently?
2) Or, depending on the ultimate complexity of the site, would it be possible to leave out the step of migration altogether? Would there be huge cons or red flags to starting from scratch and manually building a custom WP theme while duplicating the architecture/links/urls, etc. as closely as possible to the current site? Anything else to be worried about if this is a possibility?
3) Or would you suggest some other way entirely?
Thank you so much in advance for any guidance or suggestions on this! They are really nice people and I just want to make sure they do this safely because they get a lot of business from their site and they are justified to worry.
-
This post is deleted! -
Hey again! I would be happy to give you a recommendation - it may be something my firm can help you with too. Please reach out to me at john@sixthcitymarketing.com. Either way, I'll be happy to help you find someone. Thanks!
-
Thank you very much! Appreciate the advice!
Now, I'm hoping there's someone out there who can recommend a professional developer for Drupal to Wordpress work like this... I've had some good luck on certain things with UpWork but it would be nice to have a recommendation for something like this.
Thank you again everyone!
-
Hey! I would go route #1.
-
Hi there,
Thank you so much for responding. When you say you would recommend a custom WP theme, do you mean with regard to the #1 or #2 route? If you could be so kind as to clarify I would be most appreciative. Thank you again!
-
Hey there!
The three things that you'll need to be concerned with in preserving SEO:
1. URL structure
2. Architecture or site map
3. Content on indivdiual pages
If these are preserved (which I recommend), then you shouldn't have any SEO issues when you move it to WP. I would recommend a custom WP theme. You can preserve the design but you may want to see how you can modify it to be faster as Google just updated their PageSpeed tool: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
I hope that helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Custom HTML or WordPress, it's Time to Decide
Today I start the face to face interviews with website companies. So far most have pushed WordPress, few have offered either and one insisted on Joomla. Our 50+ products and services are primarily customized, so we sell -10 on our shopping cart. We rely primarily on organic Google rankings, SEO and content is critical. What do you, my fellow Mozzers, recommend for our next website platform for our mobile world and Google friendliness? TY, KJr
Web Design | | KevnJr0 -
In Wordpress getting marked as duplicate content for tags
Moz is marking 11 high priority items for duplicate content. Just switched to wordpress and publishing articles for the site but only have a few. The problem is on the tag pages. Since there aren't very many articles so when you go to the tag pages it lists one or two articles and hence there are pages with duplicate content. Most of the articles have the same tags / categories. Perhaps I'm using too many tags and categories? I'm using about 7 tags and around 2 categories for each post / event. I've read the solution is using canonical tags but a little confused on which page I should use for the tag and then I believe I need to point the duplicate pages to the correct page. For example, I have two events that are for dances and both have the same tags. So when you visit, site.com/tags/dance or site.com/events both pages have the same articles listed. Which page do I select as having the original content? Does it matter? Does that make sense? Someone was also saying I could use the Yoast plugin to fix, but not really seeing anything in the Yoast tools. I also see 301 redirects mentioned as a solution but the tag pages will be changing as we add new articles and they have a purpose so not really seeing that as a solution.
Web Design | | limited70 -
Yoast focus keywords for portfolio post types in WordPress
This one is for the WordPress optimization crowd! Portfolios are used to display work. I have a question about best seo optimization techniques. 1. Portfolios can be used to display many different types of work, for me it either original web designs from scratch, WordPress redesigns, or importing a current website into WordPress. What is the best practice for keywords for multiple portfolios that are in one category. for instance WordPress Redesign. If I have 5 WordPress redesign portfolio posts is it good practice to use WordPress redesign for all 5 portfolios or should they use variations? Yoast gets angry when the same focus keyword is used multiple times. 2. Should portfolios even be indexed? Since this is how I attract new customers I would think yes but am I giving too much exposure to my client and not enough to my business. I guess this will depend on titles and meta descriptions. A discussion on best practices here is what I am really looking for. What is your advice and opinion on the matter.
Web Design | | donsilvernail1 -
Wordpress Custom Permalinks Plugin Issue
Hello, I installed this plugin and I'm having trouble making it work. I'm new to WordPress so was hoping someone can help me out. I'm looking to set up the following pages for example
Web Design | | ec1976
http://testsite.azurewebsites.net/Services/Services1
http://testsite.azurewebsites.net/Services/Services2 I do the following steps Add New Page Enter the following title "Services1" Enter the following text in the Permalink textbox "Services/Services1" replacing the default text "?page_id=140" Then I publish the page. This automatically updates the "Custom Fields" section below. The name is set to "custom_permalink" and the value is set to "Services/Services1". Then I "view page" but get a 404 error. The url is "http://testsite.azurewebsites.net/Services/Services1" Some additional info 1. WordPress version 9.8.3 Settings - Permalinks is set to "post name" Custom Permalinks version 0.7.18 Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks0 -
Is my client getting overcharged?
My client has medium sized website (15k pages). They have a company that takes care of everything related to the website. Recently they decided to put a wordpress blog on the site, with a bought theme that only needed the yoast SEO plugin. On an extension like this www.domain.com/blog I could do this very quickly and I am not a professional programmer. The company claims it took them 40 hours and charged 40 x 125$ = 5,000 $ for it. That does not make sense to me at all. Can anyone explain to me how a clean wordpress install with a preselected theme can take 40 hours? Especially when the people that are installing it call themselves wordpress experts and make custom themes etc. Thanks in advance.
Web Design | | Lebron270 -
What pluggin translator is the newest and the best to install on wordpress. Thank you very much
What pluggin translator is the newest and the best to install on wordpress. Thank you very much
Web Design | | maestrosonrisas0 -
How do I learn how to build custom wordpress websites?
Is wordpress a good platform to build websites with? If so, what are some good resources to learn how to build custom websites using wordpress?
Web Design | | Lael0 -
Best way to develop a WordPress version of your site and then move it?
I have two websites that generate hundreds of organic hits each day. I want to switch both of them to WordPress. What is the best way to go about developing these sites then making them live while still keeping the current ones up?
Web Design | | C-Style0