CMS Analysis: Unlocking Best Strategies of Website Migration

Blog,CMS Platforms Reviews

Anyone with an appreciation for easy website management have most likely been impressed with the use of CMS. They not only make the publishing process a lot easier and accessible in terms of technology and knowledge needed. Content Management Systems also maintain amazing and professional-looking websites.

It might look like a perfect solution, but there’s a fly in the ointment. Because there is a gazillion of CMS platforms available online, majority of website owners are having a hard time to choose one. Consequently, website migration across various CMS options occurs more and more frequently.

Needless to say, that choosing a wrong CMS for your website may leave your project in an unfortunate position. That’s why website migrations occur now and again, and even for the professionals of CMS world the announcement of an upcoming conversion project can make the palms a little sweaty.

Despite the fact that the task is really tedious and requires a vast amount of resources to be done properly, data migration is not a rocket science at all.

In practice, there are quite lots of ways to get around the problem. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the most effective ones.

Manual Migration

Such a type of website migration is often treated as the most painful one. It means cutting every piece of content off the old website and pasting it to the new publishing tool. This is quite labor-intensive job, requiring a high level of programming background.

Assisted Migration

Those website owners having no proper level of experience to perform the migration manually should necessarily evaluate an assisted way. It means hiring a high-skilled IT specialist or even a team of specialists to get the whole migration procedure done. They will perform the data conversion precisely and accurately, taking into consideration all the needs and requirements concerning the future website.

Automated Content Migration

The option of an automated website migration is clearly the most attractive one. It involves little or no manual effort, slashing significantly the time needed for conducting the site conversion.

Which route to go depends mostly on how much time, money and resources are available. There are many ifs-and-buts to each opinion, but generally, the days of copy/pasting the content are gone.

Analysis & Best Strategies

Considering the enormousness of manual migrations, the need for automated solutions are becoming more evident. There’s no shadow of doubt that there’s no substitute for the human brain. But there are things (such as finding, retrieving, and processing large amount of data) that computers do much faster than a human can. And this is the main reason more and more often people turn to computers to get the website migration done. Conceptually, there are several ways to perform website transfer in an automated manner. They are as follows:

Export the content from the current CMS into some neutral (XML) format, and when finished, import it into the new platform.

Make use of APIs (application programming interfaces) provided by the old and the new CMS, and writing a program to convert the data.

Utilize an online converter (aisite, for instance). Its simple wizard leads users through the switch.

Automated method of website conversion is currently becoming more and more popular due to a number of benefits it provides.

Specifically, there’s no training required to perform the website conversion automatically – instead of getting deeply into codes and scripts, only a few buttons need to be pressed.

One more advantage of performing the switch automatedly is that the process is extremely simple and expects just filling out a few text fields on a form or selecting some options. Therefore, it can easily be accomplished without a developer.

Despite all the advantages associated with the automated data migration, there some minuses as well. Automated method of data migration isn’t capable of migrating highly customized entities (custom post types or fields). Such kind of content has to be moved manually.

Final Words

Despite the fact, that there are numerous CMS options available at the web market, your choice should be for a personal fit. Therefore, your final choice of the software should be based on your practical business needs (budget, scope, your resources, and the type of content you wish to produce), not the “hottest” or “most popular” gizmo du jour. Unless you know it – you’re going to have a hard time selecting the ideal CMS.

Now you are provided with all the necessary information concerning the ways of website migration across CMS options.

So, take your time to choose the most appropriate for you route and start your website migration.

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