Migrating a site that uses custom input forms

  • MsCrow

    (@mscrow)


    7 months ago

    Hi

    I am redeveloping this website from a very old custom themed job. It uses pre-defined post/page input fields and also additional page categories. The site was driven by multiple legacy plugins using features now common in WordPress including advanced category sorter etc.

    Moving to blocks – preferable – and 2025 – to start anew has meant:

    1. WordPress doesn’t know how to handle the custom fields so pages and posts are empty of content.
    2. I can see 400+ news articles in a sub category but they are not available in the posts listing – that is entirely empty. I think the developer created child categories that haven’t mapped.

    I need to look in the php but I am guessing the data is there but I’m not sure if it is useable by the updated WordPress.

    I’m mostly sanguine about starting from new but concerned that links from socials and other websites will now be broken.

    Any advice welcome. Thank you.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
  • Moderator threadi

    (@threadi)

    7 months ago

    I think you have three options with this construct:

    • Adapt the existing programming in an individual plugin or theme. In the best case scenario, you can use the existing code and just need to adapt it to the current circumstances in WordPress. Unfortunately, without knowing the code, it’s impossible to say exactly what needs to be done.
    • Import the existing content from the custom fields into the fields that are now standard in WordPress. Depending on the content, you may still need individual fields (postmeta information, I think). However, given the amount of data involved in the import, you would have to write your own migration script. This could also be quite time-consuming.
    • Create everything from scratch and copy the existing content into the new project using copy & paste. Given the amount of content, this can also be quite time-consuming.

    As far as SEO is concerned, you can actually structure the URLs for content in the same way as before. If one no longer fits, you can also set up an SEO-relevant redirect. However, the URLs for media files (especially images) will certainly change. You could also do this manually, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the effort.

    If you need personal support from a developer at any point, you’re sure to find it here: https://jobs.wordpress.net/

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

The topic ‘Migrating a site that uses custom input forms’ is closed to new replies.