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Migrations

Moving from Joomla to WordPress

Articles and categories come across predictably. Whatever extensions the site grew over the years is the part that needs looking at properly before anyone quotes.

Before anyone quotes

What survives the move, and what does not

Most migration disputes come from this list being assumed rather than agreed. So we agree it first.

Comes across

  • Articles, mapped to posts or pages
  • Categories and their nesting
  • Registered users
  • Media from the Joomla images directory

Gets rebuilt

  • The template, including module positions
  • Every third-party extension
  • Menus, which Joomla models as content routes
  • K2 or VirtueMart data, which needs bespoke handling
The expensive surprises

Three things specific to Joomla

K2 content is not Joomla content

Sites on K2 store articles in their own tables entirely. A standard Joomla importer will report success and quietly bring across nothing.

SEF URLs vary by configuration

Two Joomla sites can produce completely different URL shapes depending on settings and which SEF extension is installed. The live URLs get crawled and mapped, rather than assumed.

Menus carry structure, not just links

In Joomla the menu item decides how a page renders. That logic has to be re-expressed as templates, which is easy to miss when only the labels are compared.

How it runs

Five steps, same every time

  1. 1

    Crawl what is live

    Every URL currently indexed, exported to a sheet. This becomes the redirect map and the definition of done.

  2. 2

    Audit the export

    What the platform gives us, compared against what the crawl found. The difference is the rebuild, and it gets priced before we start.

  3. 3

    Build on staging

    The new site goes up somewhere private, with real content imported, so you review the actual thing rather than a mockup.

  4. 4

    Map every redirect

    Old URL to new URL, one row at a time, tested as 301s on staging before anything points at production.

  5. 5

    Cut over and watch

    DNS moves, then we monitor crawl errors and traffic for the fortnight that follows, because that is when problems surface.

Before you commit

Leaving Joomla, answered

Something not covered here? Ask us directly and an engineer will answer.

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From Joomla we can bring over: articles, mapped to posts or pages; categories and their nesting; registered users; media from the joomla images directory. Everything else on the site has to be rebuilt, and we agree which is which before quoting.

The parts with no equivalent on the other side: the template, including module positions; every third-party extension; menus, which joomla models as content routes; k2 or virtuemart data, which needs bespoke handling. This is where the cost sits, so it is priced up front rather than discovered halfway through.

Not if the redirects are done properly. We crawl every URL that is currently indexed, map each one to its new address, and test those as 301s on staging before anything points at production. Then we watch crawl errors and traffic for the fortnight after cutover.

Sites on K2 store articles in their own tables entirely. A standard Joomla importer will report success and quietly bring across nothing.

Two Joomla sites can produce completely different URL shapes depending on settings and which SEF extension is installed. The live URLs get crawled and mapped, rather than assumed.

Start here

Send us the Joomla site

We will crawl it, work out what the export actually gives us, and come back with a fixed price and the redirect map included.

Get a migration quote Book a consultation

  • A free audit first

    We'll look at your site and tell you straight what needs doing.

  • Fixed scope, fixed price

    Agreed in writing before any work starts. No hidden fees.

  • A real engineer on the call

    You talk to the people who do the work, not a sales script.