CMS migration: preserve content and SEO rankings

WordPress with 10,000 records, headless architecture for multi-channel publishing — a typical scenario where direct export-import breaks SEO and structure. Data schemas are incompatible, media files are in bindings, Rich Text loses formatting. We solve this with an ETL pipeline using batching and reprocessing. Over 5 years we have completed 30+ migrations — from WP→Strapi to Drupal→Contentful. Budget savings reach 40% (up to 200,000 rubles on a project with 5,000 records) due to automation compared to manual migration. Our team has 10+ years of web development experience, ensuring reliable transfer.

A simple database dump won't work: 60% of time goes into transformation. Content type mapping, taxonomy restructuring, Rich Text conversion — each stage demands its own approach.

How to prepare data for migration?

The first step is inventory. We collect the schema: content types, fields, taxonomies, metadata. For WordPress this means posts, pages, users, shortcodes; for Contentful — models and locales. Mapping is done manually with your team's involvement — this guarantees 100% transfer.

Content type mapping

This mapping becomes the foundation for transformation scripts.

Why an ETL pipeline is faster than manual transfer?

ETL — Extract–Transform–Load — allows automating even complex transformations. Batching 50 records with a 500 ms delay speeds up the process 3x compared to single-item processing. Example script:

// scripts/cms-migration.ts
interface MigrationConfig {
  source: 'wordpress' | 'contentful' | 'ghost';
  target: 'strapi' | 'contentful' | 'sanity';
  contentTypes: ContentTypeMapping[];
}

async function migrate(config: MigrationConfig) {
  const extractor = getExtractor(config.source);
  const transformer = getTransformer(config.source, config.target);
  const loader = getLoader(config.target);

  for (const mapping of config.contentTypes) {
    console.log(`Migrating: ${mapping.sourceName} → ${mapping.targetName}`);
    const items = await extractor.extract(mapping.sourceName);
    const transformed = items.map(item => transformer.transform(item, mapping));
    for (const batch of chunk(transformed, 50)) {
      await loader.load(mapping.targetName, batch);
      await delay(500);
    }
  }
}

Rich Text migration

The hardest stage — format transformation. HTML → Portable Text (Sanity) or Markdown (Contentful) requires recursive DOM parsing. Image blocks, embedded shortcodes — each element is processed by rule. For example, migrating 15,000 images from WordPress to Strapi took 2 days for batching and relinking.

// WordPress HTML → Portable Text
import { htmlToPortableText } from '@portabletext/html';

function transformWpContent(html: string) {
  return htmlToPortableText(html, {
    rules: [
      {
        deserialize(el, next, block) {
          if (el.tagName === 'IMG') {
            return block({
              _type: 'image',
              _key: Math.random().toString(36).slice(2),
              src: el.getAttribute('src'),
              alt: el.getAttribute('alt'),
            });
          }
        },
      },
    ],
  });
}

After content loading, we generate a redirect mapping and configure 301 redirects.

const redirects = oldPosts.map(old => ({
  source: old.url,
  destination: newPosts.find(n => n.slug === old.slug)?.url ?? '/blog',
  permanent: true,
}));

What to do with SEO structure after migration?

Old URLs, meta tags, sitemaps — everything transfers without losing positions. We use 301 redirects and error logging. As per WordPress documentation, correct redirects are critical for preserving PageRank. If you are planning a migration, contact us — we will help plan the budget and timeline.

Key migration challenges

Rich Text with attachments

In WordPress, content is stored as HTML with inline shortcodes. In Contentful — Markdown, in Sanity — Portable Text. The algorithm recursively parses the DOM and assembles blocks.

SEO structure

We transfer meta tags, headings, sitemaps. We configure 301 redirects to preserve positions. Redirect setup in Strapi is described in the official Redirects plugin.

Downtime

We minimize downtime to 15 minutes using parallel write and DNS switching.

Users and permissions

We import accounts, roles, and subscriptions, ensuring seamless authentication.

Process flow

1. Audit — inventory content, schema, SEO tags, media.
2. Mapping — create correspondences of content types and fields.
3. Script development — write an ETL pipeline for your CMS pair.
4. Test migration — run on a copy, verify data integrity and metadata.
5. Production launch — perform transfer during low-traffic window.
6. Post-migration — monitor 404 errors, adjust redirects, deliver documentation.

Timeline

Cost is calculated individually — write to us, we will evaluate the project in one day. Get a consultation from a migration engineer.

Post-migration checklist

• Verify 301 redirects for top-100 pages
• Compare record count in old and new CMS (count)
• Test forms, search, filters
• Upload sitemap to Search Console
• Set up 404 monitoring

What the work includes

• Migration plan and mapping.
• ETL scripts tailored to your CMS.
• Configuration of 301 redirects and sitemap.
• Staging testing and post-launch monitoring.
• Documentation (redirect list, data schema, instructions).
• 30 days of support after migration.

Contact us for a consultation on transferring your site — we will estimate budget and timeline within one day. Order a migration now to discuss details without obligation. We guarantee data integrity and zero downtime.

Website Redesign and Migration: CMS Change, SEO Preservation

A client came to us 6 weeks after a self-attempted redesign: 'We moved from WordPress to Tilda, traffic dropped by 70%.' I opened Google Search Console — 847 pages returned 404, the URL structure had completely changed, not a single 301 redirect was in place. Yandex hadn't reindexed the new site yet, positions collapsed. Recovery took 4 months and resulted in significant revenue loss for the quarter. Our experience — over 7 years and 80+ successful migrations, we guarantee position retention with the right approach.

Why Do Migrations Break SEO?

Search engines have indexed specific URLs. If /catalog/shoes/nike-air-max-270 turned into /products/nike-air-max-270 without a 301 redirect — all the link equity, traffic, and rankings go nowhere. Google says 301 passes ~99% of PageRank, but in practice positions recover over 2–8 weeks, not instantly.

Commonly, SEO gets broken not out of malice, but because a developer doesn't view the URL structure as a public API. Here are typical breakages:

How to Recover Traffic After a Failed Migration?

If traffic dropped, act immediately:

1. Crawl the new site for 404s and compare with the pre-migration URL list.
2. Create redirects for all lost pages with traffic >0.
3. Check structured data and meta tags on a test sample.
4. Daily monitor Coverage in Search Console and positions for top 50 queries.
5. If after 2 weeks traffic does not recover — deep audit of redirects (transitivity, chains, loops).

In our practice, a large e-commerce site lost 50% of traffic when moving from Bitrix to React + Strapi. We restored 95% of redirects in three days, and within 3 weeks traffic returned to 90% of original.

What Does a Pre-Migration Audit Include?

Before starting development on the new site:

1. Full crawl of current site via Screaming Frog or Sitebulb. Get list of all indexable URLs with traffic from Google Search Console.
2. Export all pages with organic traffic >0 over the last 6 months — these are priority for redirects.
3. Record all external backlinks to specific pages — Ahrefs, Semrush.
4. Snapshot current positions for key queries — baseline for post-migration comparison.
5. Save Core Web Vitals from Search Console for the previous 90 days.

Table for recording:

Contact us for a detailed pre-migration audit — we will help identify all risks and create an action plan.

URL Mapping and Redirects

For projects with 200+ pages, we create a mapping table: old URL → new URL → status (301, merged with another page, deleted). Each row is verified: does the content actually migrate here?

In Laravel, redirects are handled via configuration file and middleware, not .htaccess — faster and more manageable. For WordPress → Next.js: redirects are set in next.config.js (static) and at the Nginx/CDN level for dynamic ones. Old .htaccess on shared hosting with 500+ lines of redirects is a special hell. Each redirect is checked sequentially, performance suffers. We move to Nginx map directive or Redis cache for dynamic lookup. More at Wikipedia: HTTP 301.

How to Migrate Content from Different CMSs?

WordPress → Headless CMS (Contentful, Strapi, Sanity): WordPress REST API or WP All Export to export posts, meta fields, media files. Migration script in Node.js: parse export, transform structure, upload via CMS API. Media files are reuploaded to new storage, links updated in content. Typical problem — shortcodes in WordPress content ([gallery id="123"]): need parser and transformation to new format.

1C-Bitrix → modern stack: Bitrix stores content in non-standard tables with IBLOCK_ELEMENT_PROPERTY. Direct SQL export via phpMyAdmin or Bitrix API. Transformation is the longest part due to specific Bitrix data structure.

Heavy WYSIWYG → structured content: Years of editing in FCKEditor/TinyMCE leave inline styles, non-standard tags, broken attributes. HTML sanitize + transformation to Markdown or Portable Text (Sanity) with manual check of problematic pages.

How to Preserve Technical SEO Elements During Migration?

Structured data (Schema.org) — if the old site had Product, Article, BreadcrumbList markup, they must be on the new site too. Google Search Console → Enhancement reports will show loss of rich snippets.

Sitemap XML: generated automatically, submitted to GSC a day after launch. Old sitemap remains until full reindexing.

hreflang for multilingual sites: if tags are lost during migration, conflicts between language versions in search results will start within weeks.

Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags — often forgotten when changing template, pages stop displaying correctly when shared on social networks.

Launch and First Weeks Monitoring

DNS propagation: DNS switching takes up to 48 hours, plan launch with buffer. Cloudflare as DNS provider — propagation takes minutes, not hours.

After launch, monitor daily: Search Console → Coverage (indexing errors), Analytics → organic traffic, year-over-year comparison, crawl site for 404 errors.

First 2 weeks are critical. If traffic drops more than 30% — immediate audit of redirects and comparison with pre-migration crawl.

What the Service Includes

Results you receive:

1. Migration plan with URL mapping and redirects in Excel/Google Sheets format.
2. Configured 301 redirects at server level (Nginx/Cloudflare/Vercel).
3. Migrated content with integrity check: images, meta fields, links.
4. Structured data (Schema.org) on the new site, identical to old or improved.
5. SEO report: position trend at 1, 3, and 6 weeks after launch.
6. Coverage monitoring in Search Console with error notifications.
7. Guaranteed position retention: if traffic drops more than 15% within the first month — free audit and correction.

Timelines and Estimates

• Redesign with migration for a small site (up to 100 pages): 4–8 weeks.
• E-commerce migration with 500+ product pages: 8–16 weeks.
• Only technical migration part (redirects, metadata) without redesign: 1–3 weeks.

Cost is calculated individually based on scope.

Get a consultation for your project — we will respond within a day. Order a pre-migration audit of your site and receive a detailed proposal with a redirect plan. Contact us to discuss details.