(ISF) Question about migrating websites.

Hello Friends,

I am doing some consulting work for a nonprofit that paid a local advertising agency to develop a cms website for them at a cost of $9000, and they are currently paying $70 a month for this site to be hosted( the ad agency outsources the hosting and I don't know what CMS was used to create the site). It looks like the site was created using php, but beyond that I don't have any information. I feel like I don't have much information to go on and need more information from the advertising agency.Anyways, The nonprofit would like to take the site back under their control and find a more reasonable costing host. Under the contract they require 90 days notice, and the content of the site was purchased by this nonprofit. So I am looking for suggestions on a web host and also while we are terminating the relationship with this ad agency, what files should I be asking for so that we can migrate the site over to a new webhost? What questions should I be asking this agency. I want to h elp this agency make a smooth transition. Any advice from folks who have migrated sites before?

Thanks for your help!
Martha Rogers

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<snip> >>Anyways, The nonprofit would like to take the site back under their control and find a more reasonable costing host. Under the contract they require 90 days notice, and the content of the site was purchased by this nonprofit. So I am looking for suggestions on a web host and also while we are terminating the relationship with this ad agency, what files should I be asking for so that we can migrate the site over to a new webhost? What questions should I be asking this agency. I want to help this agency make a smooth transition. Any advice from folks who have migrated sites before?>;> <snip&gt;<snip&gt;

There is a lot to deal with, here.

First, is the CMS custom/proprietary, or can they install it somewhere else?

Unlike vanilla HTML sites, CMS-driven sites require migration of HTML files, code and data from a database. This makes it a lot more complex (and less pain-free) than a standard site.

If the CMS is a well-known CMS, like Joomla, Movable type, Drupal, etc. then migration is relatively easy - download all of the files, back up the database, and then reinstall on a host. Depending on the version it was written with, etc. it can be a simple, painless process, or a painful one. You can google for information on the specifics.

If the CMS is a known CMS the org can get a hold of, but cannot be hosted on a standard virtual host (like Plone, for instance), then if the price of hosting is the only factor, it's not going to be worth moving it, because hosts that aren't standard are generally more expensive (although it's probably possible to shave some bucks off of the price - but you won't get down to $10 hosting range.)

If the CMS is custom/proprietary, and it can't be gotten, or was written for them, then migration is migration off of that host, as well as off of that platform. That's a much more difficult and time consuming task, and again, if the price of hosting is the only factor, it won't be worth it, probably, until the org is ready to do a web facelift.

Then, the second part of this, to make it as painfree as possible (ha!) is to make sure that the organization has control of the domain registration and DNS - that can be a killer when it's time to migrate.

So there is a lot to assess in terms of whether this migration is going to be worth the time and cost, depending on what platform it is using.

Good luck!

Peace,
Michelle
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Michelle Murrain
MetaCentric Technology Advising
michelle%40metacentric.org">michellemetacentric.org
http://www.metacentric.org
Blog: http://www.zenofnptech.org

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