CMS2CMS – Automated Website Migration

The CMS platform a publisher started out using when his website first launched may no longer fit his needs two years down the road. CMS2CMS is a web-application that guides its users through the process of migrating their website data from one CMS platform to another. This type of automated migration process usually takes less than 15 minutes to complete.

Register for a CMS2CMS account with your email address or Facebook login, and select whether you’d like to set up a migration yourself or do it with the assistance of a technical engineer. (CMS2CMS’s engineers work as part of the platform’s Assisted Migration feature, which comes with additional costs.) If you’ve opted to go the process alone, you’ll need to type in the address of your current site (the Source) and your new site (the Target), and select the CMS type you’re switching from and to. Download and install the Bridge file to give CMS2CMS access to your website data, and then choose custom migration options, like whether you’d like to import images and make URLs on your Target website SEO friendly.

Once you’ve clicked the “Start Full Migration” button, you can sit back and relax while CMS2CMS does the heavy lifting. The application will let you know when the migration is complete, and you can check the results to ensure your new website looks exactly as it should.

Practical Uses:

• Migrate your website data from Joomla to WordPress
• Get help from a technical engineer when migrating your website
• Make sure the comments on your blog survive the migration process
• Upgrade your blog by going from Blogger to Drupal’s CMS platform

Insider Tips:

• CMS2CMS can migrate textual content, categories, users, images, comments, tags, and attachments
• Users can migrate up to 10 pages for free
• Source and Target websites must be available online for a migration to occur
• Publishers who want to change the URL structure on their Target websites should do so before starting the migration

What we liked:

• Website data migrations can be done in less than 15 minutes
• Users can try out CMS2CMS before jumping in with a paid purchase
• No manual work is necessary when migrating data from one CMS to another
• Publishers that need extra handholding can use the Assisted Migration service

What we didn’t like:

• Users can only run one migration at a time

Alternatives:

• Vamosa – http://www.vamosa.com

Company Info:

• Launched: November 2012
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: San Diego, California
• Founded by: Ruslan Savchyshyn
• Web site: http://www.cms2cms.com

Costs:

• Up to 10 pages for free
• Up to 250 pages for $29
• Up to 2,500 pages for $69
• Up to 10,000 pages for $149
• Up to 25,000 pages for $199