CMS Migration
You’re moving CMS, and you’re terrified of losing the rankings you spent years earning.
Migrations lose traffic for one reason above all others: the URL map was treated as a launch week task instead of a design input. Every old URL needs a decision before anything gets built.
Tell us what you’re moving. Every old URL gets a decision before the build starts, so the rankings and redirects you spent years earning survive the move instead of quietly vanishing the week you launch.
Or text 562-726-2287. No form marathon, no discovery call.
30,000 URLs
Mapped across four domains, none left behind
Every URL
Gets a decision before the build
By design
Rankings kept, not recovered later
Start here
Migrations lose traffic for one reason above all others: the URL map was treated as a launch week task instead of a design input. Every old URL needs a decision before anything is built. Redirect it to a specific new URL, or deliberately retire it. "We'll sort redirects at the end" is the sentence that costs the traffic, because by then nobody remembers what the old page was for.
Redirect to the closest real equivalent, not to the homepage. A bulk redirect of everything to the homepage tells a search engine those pages are gone and passes on nothing. It's the most common shortcut and it's the most expensive one.
Decide what doesn't move, because a migration is the cheapest chance you'll ever get to delete content. Rebuild the structure, don't port it. Then get one person to own the map. Not a committee.
Why this move keeps you up
Last time you moved, content went missing and nobody noticed for months.
The last migration quietly dropped pages, and nobody caught it for months.
A single page change already takes four to eight weeks in the dev queue, so a whole migration feels impossible.
Everything about what moves where sits with one person, and when they're heads-down the whole thing stalls.
You can't tell what's safe to drop and what's quietly load-bearing, so nothing gets cut and the mess moves with you.
Last time, redirects were left until launch week, and by then nobody remembered what the old pages were even for.
You're about to rebuild the same structure on a new platform, which is paying twice for the same problem.
None of this means the migration is doomed. It means the URL map keeps getting treated as a launch week task instead of a design input. Here's the version where every old URL has a decision before anyone builds anything.
The version where this goes right
Every old URL has a decision beside it before the build starts, and the rankings you spent years earning survive the move by design.
Not a bulk redirect to the homepage the week you launch. A real destination for every page that earned one, a deliberate retirement for every page that didn't, and a structure rebuilt for how people actually search instead of ported across with better fonts. The content models get built with SEO considered during modelling rather than checked afterwards, so the new site keeps its rankings because it was designed to. One person owns the map, the reasoning is written down, and nothing quietly 404s three weeks after go-live.
What a real URL map looks like
Every old URL gets a decision, and a real destination.
Redirect to a specific new URL, deliberately retire, or merge two old pages into one. The decision column is the one that turns a spreadsheet into a migration list, because "we'll sort redirects at the end" is the sentence that costs the traffic.
| Old URL | Traffic | Decision | Redirects to |
|---|---|---|---|
| /products/2019-kit/ | Ranks, converts | Redirect, 301 | /products/kit/, the closest real equivalent |
| /about-us/ and /team/ | Both rank | Merge | /about/, one page out of two |
| /blog/2018-webinar/ | Dead for years | Retire | Deliberately gone, not forced to the homepage |
| /services/legacy/ | Ranks, thin | Redirect, 301 | /services/, then rewrite |
| /homepage-2016/ | Orphaned | Retire | Deliberately gone |
A migration we led
Thirty thousand URLs, four domains, one site.
Intermountain Healthcare had acquired several smaller healthcare networks and needed one web presence out of four. Each acquired network came with its own regulatory requirements, team structure, technology and content approach. The primary agency brought us in as lead content strategy consultant, embedded in their team. Here's what the work actually consisted of.
- Dozens of stakeholder interviews across the four organisations, recorded and analysed with Otter and Airtable, so qualitative feedback became something you could count and act on.
- Content models built first, with SEO considered during modelling rather than checked afterwards, so the new site kept its rankings by design.
- URL mapping across the merging domains, with a 301 migration list, so no page was left behind.
- An external medical information API integrated from Wolters Kluwer, which removed thousands of pages of redundant content that would otherwise have needed maintaining forever.
- A governance model, hybrid rather than fully centralised or fully devolved, so teams could update their own content without the structure decaying.
- Content categorised with AI into the new taxonomy, which saved thousands of hours.
What we do on a migration
What a migration engagement covers.
- Audit and decide what moves, what merges and what dies, before the build starts.
- Model the content for the new platform rather than reproducing the old shapes.
- Build the URL map as a deliverable, with a real destination for every old URL.
- Plan governance so the structure survives its first busy quarter.
- Verify after launch: redirects resolving, rankings holding, nothing quietly 404ing.
Before you hire us
What a migration engagement doesn't cover.
The platform build itself
Unless you want it. That's websites, and it's quoted separately. We plan the migration and build the map. Standing up the new platform is its own line.
Writing new content
Quoted separately. The migration decides what moves, what merges and what dies. Writing what replaces the retired pages is its own project.
A straight lift and shift
If the answer really is "same content, new CMS", a developer can do that and you don't need this. We're for migrations where the structure and the rankings are at stake.
What it costs
What a migration costs.
Content strategy engagements start at $10,000.
Migrations are scoped per project, because the cost is in how many URLs there are, how many stakeholders have to agree, and how bad the current structure is. Ongoing work runs $5,000 to $15,000 a month. Full detail is on the pricing page.
Related
If it's a different problem.
Content strategy
The whole picture. A migration is one spoke of it.
Content audit
The first phase of every migration, deciding what moves and what dies.
Information architecture
A migration is the cheapest moment you'll get to fix structure.
Websites
If you also need the platform build itself.
Questions we get
What people usually ask.
Not if the URL map is treated as a design input instead of a launch week task. Every old URL gets a decision before the build, redirects point to the closest real equivalent, and the content models are built with SEO in mind. Rankings are kept by design, not recovered afterwards.
Only if you want us to. That's a separate line, quoted separately, and it's websites. The migration engagement plans what moves where and builds the URL map. The platform build is its own project you can hand to us or to your own developers.
No. That's quoted separately. The migration decides what moves, what merges and what dies, and builds the map. Writing what replaces the retired pages is its own project, scoped once you know what's surviving the move.
Probably not. If the answer really is "same content, new CMS", a developer can do that and you don't need us. This is for migrations where the structure and the rankings are at stake, and where getting the URL map wrong costs traffic.
Content strategy engagements start at $10,000, and migrations are scoped per project, because the cost is in the number of URLs, the number of stakeholders who have to agree, and how bad the current structure is. Ongoing work runs $5,000 to $15,000 a month. Detail is on the pricing page.
Close
You'll move platforms without losing what you spent years earning.
Every old URL with a decision, a real destination for the ones that earned it, and rankings kept by design.
Every old URL needs a decision before anything gets built. That's the whole game.