Plan the move around what must survive
Move from Liferay, Joomla, Drupal, or a restrictive CMS with a plan for your content, URLs, and integrations. We map the source, rebuild the required structures, and test the transition before launch.
105+
Google
5-star reviews
Winner & Jury
Malaysia Website Award
Lead Organiser
WordCamp Asia & Malaysia
Performance Expert
Elementor
CMS migration replaces a restrictive or unsupported system without discarding the useful parts of the existing website.
We migrate Liferay, Joomla and bespoke platforms using source inventories, redirect maps, staged verification and controlled launch procedures. If you are staying on WordPress and removing technical debt, see our WordPress rebuild service.
Migration in practice
GLC under the Ministry of Finance
The Liferay portal was migrated to WordPress with source content reconciled, URLs mapped and search performance monitored against its pre-migration baseline.
We are confident to recommend Ulement as Highly Skilled and Professional web company.
Google review
Service detail
Migration replaces the system. It is warranted when the constraint is the content management system itself rather than what has been built on it.
01
Licensing or vendor lock-in has become a material cost
The content management system costs more to keep than to leave, or the content cannot be extracted without the vendor’s cooperation
02
Search architecture that cannot be corrected
URL patterns, taxonomy, or template structure that the content management system will not let you change
03
Publishing and structural changes require a developer
Publishing a new service page requires a developer, and every structural change becomes a cost
04
Specialist maintenance support is becoming unavailable
The content management system or its dependencies are past end of life
If your current website system still works well, moving to WordPress may be unnecessary. Fixing the website may cost less. Where URLs or content will change, we use migration SEO protection to preserve search visibility. We will explain which option makes sense before you commit.
CMS Migration
Every Joomla migration begins with a full crawl of the live site, because the Joomla sitemap is frequently inaccurate and the URL inventory cannot be reconstructed after cutover.
Joomla paths carry article and category identifiers – index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=147 and its SEF variants – with no WordPress analogue. Each requires an individual mapping decision rather than a pattern rule.
Slugs generated automatically from Joomla titles rarely match the existing indexed paths, so a bulk import produces a site where every URL is subtly wrong and every redirect is missing.
In Joomla the menu frequently is the URL structure. Category nesting does not map automatically, and reconstructing the hierarchy is an editorial decision, not an import setting.
K2, Virtuemart, and custom components store content in structures that no WordPress importer reads. Content is extracted directly from the database or the rendered front end.
CMS Migration
Liferay is a portal rather than a CMS, and the difference determines the whole approach.
Portal paths frequently carry session identifiers, node references, or navigation context rather than a stable content address. There is rarely a clean one-to-one map, and the mapping exercise is the largest single line in the project.
Liferay role and organisation structures have no direct WordPress equivalent. Where content is gated by internal role, the access model is redesigned rather than translated.
Document Library structures, versioning, and metadata need deliberate translation into a WordPress media and custom post type architecture.
Structured content defined in Liferay’s own templating language is rebuilt as custom post types with defined fields, which is what makes it maintainable afterwards.
CMS MIGRATION
Node-based content and field structures map reasonably well to custom post types, but taxonomy depth and Views-generated pages need reconstruction rather than import.
No meaningful export path exists. Content is extracted from the rendered front end, and the URL taxonomy is rebuilt from a crawl. Organisations usually leave these content management systems because they have hit a structural ceiling on search or integration.
Where a content management system was built in-house or by an agency no longer trading, there is often no documentation and no export. We extract from the database directly where access permits, and from the rendered site where it does not.
We are confident to recommend Ulement as Highly Skilled and Professional web company.
GLC under the Ministry of Finance
Process
Each stage creates evidence for the next. The migration is not treated as a bulk import.
01
Record content, templates, data, access, integrations, functionality and URLs.
02
Decide where each page, URL, content field and integration belongs in the target system.
03
Create the WordPress content model, templates, roles and integrations on staging.
04
Reconcile content and test redirects, journeys, integrations, performance and access.
05
Run the controlled production cutover with agreed checks and a rollback route.
06
Track redirects, indexation, search behaviour and critical functions after launch.
Scope and cost
Migration is priced against the URL inventory and the source CMS, not against page count.
The variables that move the number:
The mapping exercise scales with it directly, and it is usually larger than the organisation expects
Joomla site with clean SEF URLs maps faster than a Liferay portal encoding session state
How many distinct record types exist, and whether any require custom fields
Each language multiplies the mapping and the verification
Every system the content management system exchanges data with needs rebuilding and testing
Combining migration and redesign is usually efficient, because you pay for URL mapping once rather than twice
Typical duration. The pre-migration audit runs one to three weeks and must complete before the build starts because the build depends on its output. Institutional migrations then run three to six months across build, content migration, testing and launch. These projects typically include ninety days of verification after cutover, with the monitoring period confirmed in the written scope.
The standalone migration SEO protection service has a separate thirty-day monitoring scope. Agree the applicable period before launch.
We audit, we scope, then we quote. A number issued before the URL inventory exists is a guess, and on institutional content management systems guesses get expensive.
Questions about platform migration
Near-zero interruption is normally achievable. The new content management system is built and verified on staging while the current one runs, then cut over through a controlled DNS change with time-to-live reduced beforehand. A brief propagation or third-party DNS delay remains possible, so the launch plan includes rollback and monitoring.
It moves. Where the source system stores content in a proprietary format, it is reconstructed rather than transferred – slower, but it produces content you own outright rather than content held inside another vendor’s structure.
Sometimes. Where a content management system divides cleanly by section, phased migration reduces risk. Where content and navigation are interdependent, staging the move creates more risk than it removes. The pre-migration audit determines which applies.
Not necessarily, though it is often efficient. Migration can preserve the existing design on new architecture. Where the design is also failing, combining the two avoids paying twice for URL mapping.
Next Step
We will review the existing platform, content estate, integrations and operating constraints before proposing the migration scope.