Migrating website to another CMS...

[Betelgeuse]

Hello.

I'm looking for a some advice...

We currently have a website that has a substantial level of products and services available on our website, quite literally into the 1000's.

I'm having a few concerns on the current CMS which we pay a "subscription" style amount monthly and I don't feel it's the right fit for our growing business. I'm not very technical on this...

I'm wondering on what complexities I should look out for and how easy is it to switch from one CMS to another? Preferably one that is customizable to our growing needs as well as other projects while out business expands.

Thanks

 

[jacobc]

Hi,

It would really depend on what you are currently using and what you are looking to move to - can you give any more specifics?

regards,

Jacob

 

[ryedale]

What CMS are you using at the moment?

There are conversions tools available for common ones or if it's database driven, then a developer can usually write a script to migrate the data for you

 

[Betelgeuse]

Hi Jacob.

Now that is a question. The firm with the CMS have been very secretive about what they particularity use. As far as I'm aware commands are done by them using MySQL. I do think they have built it themselves using existing techniques but that's where my knowledge fails me.

And in regards to what I'm looking to move too... That is another question in itself

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Hi there,

What are you currently using?

There are a number of shopping cart migration services - if you do a search for them you should find some options, that may include your current provider.

Otherwise a decent web host or developer may be able to do this for you.

Given the number of products you have, if you're after a traditional online store then OpenCart is a great platform. It's modern and lightweight, and unless you need specific features that only Magento provides it's what we'd recommend over it.

I'm not surprised you're concerned. We're obviously biased, but self hosting a well designed open source eCommerce platform is arguably much more flexible and better value for what you get.

You're not tied to a specific provider, can pay designers and developers to improve your existing website, and have more scope for growth.

I'd find yourself a decent web host, pick a platform that will fit your needs (such as OpenCart), and if you have the budget and don't want to design the site yourself, get a designer to build your new website.

You can build it and slowly migrate everything over while your existing site is still up and running, so that helps reduce risk and will allow you to test how easy the migration will be.

I hope that helps.

Best of luck,

Dan

 

[ryedale]

And do they or would they give you access to the database if requested?

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Feel free to tell us your website and we can have a look.

builtwith.com is a great website for seeing what your website is built with.

 

[ryedale]

Assuming it's the site in your signature - then so long as you can get access to the database, it should be possible to write a migration script. Looking at the website of the guys who made it for you, then it looks like it's a custom made CMS

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Yeah, it does look like it.

I can imagine your current provider may want to limit access to your database and files, but I don't see how they'd have the right to do that, unless you've specifically signed up to such terms; and even then it should be your data to do with as you wish.

If you can export your products and orders and so forth to excel for example, then you could potentially manually migrate your website that way.

 

[Betelgeuse]

Hi Dan.

To be honest I would not want to be shelling out £10k+ for another site. The site itself is the first version since launch and it seems to be received well by all of our clients and customers..

The site is customer CSS built @ryedale - I can get access to the database based on uploading product information, image new pages etc but it comes to adding specifics like how the page would sit, layout of the page and other aspects that we will constantly be charged for small changes like adding a contact form etc. We want to be able to carry that kind of work in-house once we take on a new developer.

 

[ryedale]

Whilst it wouldn't cost anything like 10k to replicate that site on a CMS such as Wordpress or Joomla, it's still going to be a manual new build to make it look exactly the same if you are happy with the design

Perfectly achievable but there would be a substantial amount of work involved from a styling / design perspective. As discussed, you may be able to save on the bulk re-entering of articles / products by using a database / CSV import script if you can get access to the right parts of the database.

If your site is ranking well in Google currently as well , then it's important that your URLS either remain the same or that redirects ensure link continuity on the new CMS

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Hi Betelgeuse,

That's understandable. Perhaps check what your ownership/rights are for your website?

If it's custom made I don't see how you couldn't own your website.

In which case you can always find a new host (which will likely be much more affordable), and then have the freedom to seek out your own developers or help to make any changes.

It's common practise for small changes to be overcharged for, but if you can tender for this then you'll be able to get the same work done far more cost effectively.

Your website will likely run fine on normal web or eCommerce hosting.

If it requires custom modules or root access then you may need a VPS, which you may want for performance anyway.

It looks like you're currently hosted from an Amazon server in Ireland. But performance really doesn't look great, and if you're targeting mainland UK it's not an ideal location to have your site hosted from.

Pingdom gave a load time of nearly 4 seconds.

So you could look to move your site to a new host, and then tender for any changes you need.

But ultimately if you want to be able to make changes yourself, then you'll want to migrate to an open source eCommerce platform like OpenCart.

To give you an idea of what that could look like, here's a similar website made in OpenCart using the popular theme Journal: www.relimobility.co.uk

You could probably get your site ported to OpenCart for not that much to be honest.

You could even pay an OpenCart theme developer to replicate your existing site's look and CSS as an OpenCart template.

It's then just a case of importing the data for your products and orders.

So in term of look and feel your website would be very similar (if not the same), but you'd then have a standard backend that'll give you full control over your content, and allow you to easily make changes.

Anyway, best of luck,

Dan

 

[ryedale]

I think to be fair , his hosting isn't really the issue he was raising here.

The site loaded pretty much instantly here and is extremely fast moving through the pages

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Well I think the issue is lack of control. Currently Betelgeuse is at the mercy of their existing provider for everything, and I get the impression minor updates are expensive and inconvenient.

That's a common problem when a website is hosted by the developer.

By decoupling that, they can use their own developer or pay others. So at least that gives some freedom from the current situation.

Pingdom gave the slow load time.

It's possible their hosting is separate, and they're paying a subscription just for the developed site, but that wasn't what I thought. Anyway, Betelgeuse can clarify.

 

[ryedale]

Just out of interest, I got 1.32 and 1.64 seconds load time for his site from Pingdom which is excellent - do you test from the US locations rather than Europe?

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Yeah I didn't tick Amsterdam the first time, so it used one of the US locations.
It performs significantly worse from the US it seems.

 

[Deleted member 248628]

What are your actual issues and what are you looking to get out of moving?

Is it the subscription pricing?
Have you lost trust in the provider?
Do you feel the site could be performing better?
Do you feel locked in?

Personally, I feel subscription payments are actually a good thing in many ways - it keeps the provider engaged - but you have to get something in return - security and maintenance updates, a certain number of changes per month, a report on site performance (with metrics you understand and can call them out on if they get worse) and so on. Which is all irrelevant if you don't trust the provider and feel locked in.

If you do choose to move, there are any number of software packages that can be customised to do what you need (OpenCart and Magento have been mentioned but there are many more) - however, in order to move you will need a new provider you can trust to do the customisation work. How long that takes is dependent upon how helpful your existing provider is (you really need to get a copy of the database at the very least and if they won't provide it, get a lawyer to read through your contract as it should be your data, not theirs).

One advantage of a custom solution, as you seem to have now, is it is tailored exactly to your requirements, whereas using an off-the-shelf system will always involve some compromise somewhere (or so much customisation it essentially becomes bespoke). The other advantage of an off-the-shelf system is it may be easier to hire developers though (again, taking account of any customisations which will involve a learning curve).

Amazon in Ireland shouldn't be giving the long response times others have noticed, whether from the UK or the US. I use Amazon servers in Frankfurt and regularly test response times from across the world and don't see responses like that.

Finally, beforemoving, you want to take a sitemap of all the publically available URLs on the site - then after moving you want to ensure that all the important pages (for some definition of important) have a redirection set up (technically, a 301 redirect) so that anyone who clicks a link that worked on the old site will be taken to the equivalent page on the new site (plus this helps with SEO but user-experience is more important than computer-experience).

But there's no point doing anything until you are certain about the why you're moving and what you want moving to do for your business.

 

[Alan]

It's common practise for small changes to be overcharged for, but if you can tender for this then you'll be able to get the same work done far more cost effectively.

Just to pick up on this, I don't think this is common practice, what I think is common practice is for people to irrationally to expect small changes to be inexpensive ignoring the overheads involved in a change. It is true that there are many thousand people vying for 'small change' work on the known job boards, which does mean you can find a bargain, at the risk of finding a nightmare.

 

[dexterash]

If the OP can't get access to their current DB (for example, via a backup request ), I'm sure there are ways for digitally extracting(scraping) all the information needed (automated) and reformatted (or, at least, a big part of it) to a format accepted to be imported by the new CMS/Cart etc.

But that means also managing the backend system too (including updates, security, patches etc) that's not that easy to do. But also not impossible.

 

[SmartWeb Studio Ltd]

I wouldn't use CMS for comparison website.

We've build recently a custom web application for a mobile phone comparison website and I cannot imagine using Wordpress or anything off the shelf in term of performance, features or safety.

Wordpress (or other CMS's) is good for a simple website (online brochure type) where you want to quickly add some news etc..

 

[ryedale]

Have to disagree with that

If you know the inner workings of a CMS and how to code for them, then you can do anything with them.

We make bespoke solutions for clients using the Joomla CMS and occasionally Wordpress - it gives the client the functionality of a CMS that they are often familiar with or can pick up easily with the addition of whatever bespoke functionality they are looking for.

By tapping into elements of the CMS such as user management and access rights and by giving them the existing platform to manage standard content as well, the cost can be kept down as there is less development time involved.

 

[SmartWeb Studio Ltd]

I am not saying that his is not possible to do. You can write and add whatever to any CMS as long source code is open.

I am talking that you cannot compete with a tailored solution build from a scratch in order to provide performance, security and features (but here the limit is a PHP not a CMS as you cannot easily connect to IO devices as you can using ASP.NET MVC (i.e. entry door system, NFC scanners, etc.).

Wordpress or any other CMS is very buggy and insecure as it is with any open source free solutions.

It is cheaper and it is easier, but definitely not better as with any off the shelf solution (and free, full of insecure addons and bugs in a code).