Drupal to WordPress Migration Tips

In the current digital age, it’s crucial to have an updated CMS that works well for your business. Here at Hounder, we’ve worked on many different projects within Drupal and WordPress. Depending on your needs, one may work better for you than another. If you’re considering making the switch to WordPress from Drupal, we can help you go through a painless process. Keep scrolling to learn more.

WordPress vs. Drupal

While both Drupal and WordPress are powerful, open-source content management systems (CMS), each platform offers distinct advantages depending on your needs. If you're considering a Drupal to WordPress migration, understanding the differences between the two can help guide your decision.

User-Friendliness

WordPress 

Widely recognized for its intuitive interface and ease of use, WordPress is designed for non-developers. The platform allows anyone—from beginners to advanced users—to create, manage, and update content without a steep learning curve.

Drupal 

While equally powerful, Drupal requires more technical expertise. Customizing a Drupal site often involves coding knowledge, and managing its modules can be more complex. It’s ideal for developers or teams with dedicated technical resources.

Customization & Flexibility

WordPress 

With its vast plugin ecosystem, WordPress shines with ready-to-use themes, offering thousands of options for customization without requiring deep coding. It’s especially strong for building blogs, small businesses, or e-commerce sites with minimal development.

Drupal 

Drupal offers greater flexibility for complex sites with custom content types and user permissions. It is highly customizable but usually involves custom coding, which is why it's favored by enterprise-level websites, higher education, or government institutions that need advanced functionality.

Security

Drupal

Drupal is a less common CMS, whereas WordPress sites are a dime a dozen, so it’s more common for them to be targeted and pose security threats. Drupal’s granular control over user permissions also enhances security, making it ideal for large organizations with complex data handling needs.

WordPress

Alternatively, WordPress can be equally secure, but due to its popularity and extensive plugin usage, it requires more attention to security best practices, such as regular updates, using trusted plugins, and adding security plugins.

Now that we’ve covered the differences between the two CMS options, let’s dive into how you can make the seamless switch from Drupal to WordPress.

Pre-Migration Preparation

Proper preparation is key to a successful Drupal to WordPress migration. Before diving in, it's essential to assess your existing Drupal site and create a detailed plan for migrating content, features, and SEO. This preparation will help ensure a smoother transition with minimal data loss or downtime.

Tip #1: Assess Your Current Drupal Site

Before you begin the migration process, you need a comprehensive understanding of your existing Drupal site. Review and audit your preexisting content, modules, and any custom features that are in use. Keep in mind that not all Drupal modules will have direct equivalents in WordPress, so you may have to search for alternative plugins or rebuild certain functionalities you have in place.

Keep track of all documents and assets within your Drupal site. This includes content types, media files, taxonomies, etc. Creating this inventory will help prevent any important items from being overlooked during the migration process.

Tip #2: Backup Your Drupal Site

A full backup of your Drupal site is a critical step before beginning the migration process. This ensures that if anything goes wrong during the migration, you can restore your site to its original state.

To successfully do this, you’ll want to back up both your Drupal files (themes, modules, media, etc.) and your database (containing the actual content, users, and configurations). Various tools like Drush can help you successfully conduct a complete backup of your Drupal website.

Finally, make sure you store the backup in a secure location in case you need to revert any changes you make during the migration. 

Tip #3: Choose the Right Hosting for WordPress

Your hosting environment plays a vital role in your site’s performance, security, and scalability. Before migrating, ensure that your hosting provider can handle your WordPress site’s requirements.

Compare your current hosting setup with the options available for WordPress. Some WordPress hosting solutions, like Managed WordPress Hosting from providers such as WP Engine or SiteGround, offer better performance, automatic updates, and optimized security features specifically for WordPress.

Don’t forget to check your site’s size, bandwidth requirements, and expected traffic. Ensure that your new host can provide enough resources (e.g., storage, bandwidth) and server performance to keep your site running smoothly post-migration.

Tip #4: Plan URL Structure and SEO

Preserving your SEO rankings during a Drupal to WordPress migration is crucial, especially if you’ve built significant organic traffic. Planning your URL structure and SEO preservation ahead of time will help avoid traffic loss.

This step requires you to review the URL structure of your current Drupal site and ensure it aligns well with WordPress’s permalink structure. WordPress does allow customizable permalinks, so you’ll be able to mimic your existing URL structure to maintain your SEO standing. 

Create a URL mapping plan that helps create a path where your Drupal URLs properly redirect to their new WordPress counterparts. If needed, implement 301 redirects to help guide search engines and users from the old URLs to the new WordPress URLs. No matter what, you want to prevent broken links from popping up and creating issues. 

Last but not least, migrate other SEO details such as meta descriptions, title tags, and header tags to maintain consistency in search engine visibility. 

Tip #5: Determine Core Features to Retain

Not everything from your Drupal site may need to be migrated to WordPress. Assess which features and functionalities are essential for your new site and which can be discarded or rebuilt.

Identify what features you need to keep, drop, or rebuild into WordPress. For example, essential features such as blogs, static pages, contact forms, and media galleries can easily be migrated or recreated with the right WordPress plugins. Any features that have outdated custom functionality or redundant modules might be aspects you want to put in your “drop” category. It’s always a good idea to have a list of features that may involve a rebuild. This way you’ll be able to plan how these capabilities will be recreated or replaced within WordPress. 

There are also some tools/plugins you can take advantage of that can help you with this migration process.

Post-Migration Best Practices

Migrating from Drupal to WordPress requires some aftercare to ensure that everything is working properly. This will involve checking for any broken links, testing functionality, speed, and security optimization, and monitoring SEO performance over time. 

• Check for Broken Links:

  • Tools to identify and fix broken links.

• Test Site Functionality:

  • Ensure plugins, forms, and custom features are working properly.

• Optimize for Speed and Security:

  • Implement caching, security plugins, and backup solutions.

• Monitor SEO Performance:

  • Track keyword rankings, traffic changes, and implement necessary SEO adjustments.

Common Migration Challenges and Solutions

Taking these tips and tricks and putting them into action should help you experience a smooth transition to WordPress, however, there is potential for some hiccups to occur. 

Incompatible Features or Custom Modules

Drupal modules are powerful tools that provide unique features, many of which may not be available in WordPress as native functions or even through plugins. For instance, complex content types, custom fields, or specialized user roles may need to be reworked to fit WordPress’s structure.

The Solution:

Identify Alternative Plugins: Start by searching for existing WordPress plugins that provide similar functionality. For example, if you used Drupal's Views module to create custom content displays, you can use the Elementor or Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin in WordPress to achieve a similar result.

Custom Development: In some cases, you may need to hire a developer to recreate certain features as custom WordPress plugins or functions. While WordPress is less complex than Drupal, it is flexible enough to support custom development when necessary.

Compromise and Simplify: If recreating the exact feature in WordPress is not feasible, consider simplifying the feature or opting for a different approach that is easier to implement with WordPress's available tools.

Managing Large Websites with Many Pieces of Media

Migrating a small website is usually straightforward, but if you have a large Drupal site with thousands of pages, posts, or media files, the migration process can become cumbersome and prone to errors.

The Solution:

Use Professional Migration Tools: For large-scale migrations, consider using a professional migration tool like the FG Drupal to WordPress Plugin (Premium Version), which supports bulk data transfers and handles large volumes of content more efficiently.

Migrate in Phases: Instead of migrating everything at once, break your migration into smaller batches. For instance, migrate media files first, followed by blogs and static pages. This phased approach reduces the risk of errors and allows you to fix issues as they arise.

Optimize Media Files: If you have thousands of media files, use a tool like WP Offload Media to transfer media files to a third-party service, minimizing the load on your hosting server and ensuring quicker migration times.

Database Optimization: Ensure that both your Drupal and WordPress databases are optimized before migration to reduce errors and speed up the data transfer process.

SEO and Traffic Dips Post-Migration

SEO is one of the most critical aspects to monitor during a Drupal to WordPress migration. Even with proper planning, a drop in search engine rankings or traffic can occur due to changes in URL structures, metadata, or internal linking.

The Solution:

301 Redirects: One of the most effective ways to combat traffic drops is by setting up 301 redirects for all old Drupal URLs to their new WordPress counterparts. Tools like the Redirection plugin for WordPress can help automate this process. Make sure to map each Drupal URL to its exact WordPress equivalent to preserve link equity and prevent 404 errors.

Retain SEO Metadata: Ensure that your meta titles, descriptions, and other SEO metadata are correctly transferred during the migration. If possible, use a plugin like Yoast SEO or All in One SEO Pack to manage and maintain your SEO efforts in WordPress.

Monitor and Fix Broken Links: After migration, use a tool like Broken Link Checker to identify and fix any broken internal or external links that could hurt your SEO. Google Search Console is also invaluable for spotting crawl errors and performance dips.

Submit an Updated Sitemap: Generate a new XML sitemap for your WordPress site and submit it to search engines via Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools. This helps search engines re-index your site faster and reduces the risk of traffic loss.

Track Keyword Rankings and Traffic: Use tools like Google Analytics and SEMrush to monitor any fluctuations in keyword rankings and traffic. If you notice significant drops, investigate potential causes, such as missed redirects or changes in the page structure that may have affected user engagement.

Drupal to WordPress Migration Recap

While each migration project may look different with slight nuances, these tips and tricks can help you keep in mind some best practices to promote a smooth transition to WordPress. 

If you have a skilled technical team, you're already in a great position! However, many organizations still need development support to ensure a smooth CMS migration. That’s where Hounder comes in. With expertise in both Drupal and WordPress, our team can guide you through the complexities of the migration process, ensuring that all the critical elements are seamlessly transitioned.