Moving a whole website to a new platform or hosting provider is no joke. It is, in many ways, almost like moving a whole building, with everything inside. 

I’d even call it literally the same, except, one, of course, deals with physical goods, and the other with data. But they are both fraught with room for error and require complex protocols and processes in place to make sure everything ends up where it’s supposed to go. 

So let’s talk about the role of a data migration process in this big picture, and why it matters. 

Why a Data Migration Process Is Important 

Don’t let the apparently succinct nature of an online Store fool you. There could be thousands, if not tens of thousands, of product entries, each on their own URLs, nestled under carefully organized categories. 

On each URL, there might be unique, optimized copy, titles, meta data, product imagery, and other user-generated content (UGC) like reviews and pictures. 

This alone is an immense amount of data to Account for while migrating, but on top of that, there might be tens to hundreds of CMS pages, like blogs, user guides, and FAQs pages, along with thousands of entries associated with user account information, order history, pricing and options, and so much more. 

I am intentionally painting a curiously curt image of the sheer “amount” of data contained in your average online store, but even accounting for the glibness of my oversimplification, it is quite apparent to a reasonable mind that this is a monumentally large amount of data. 

Moving it, and putting it in the right place on a new platform or database is challenging enough, but then we have to deal with URL changes, which, in the absence of a proper redirect, will cause all that earned authority to collapse, resulting in massive drop offs in organic traffic. 

So, without overcomplicating it, these are some of the reasons that a data migration process is necessary to protect the functionality of your online store, provide for a continued positive user experience, and prevent a disaster with respect to SEO. 

Every provider might have its own data migration process, but now you know why it’s important, here’s ours. 

The 1Digital^ⓇData Migration Process

I can’t stress this enough, but do not work with a digital agency that does not have a well-developed data migration process. You’ve been warned.

Now, to talk details, here are the phases of our data migration process.

1. Access to and Evaluating Data 

The first step in our data migration process is summing it all up. Our technical experts will need access to your data, either through your platform’s API (all in all, one of the best ways to migrate is an API transfer), through a CSV file, or through whatever external database/ERP you use. 

Once we have access to your website’s data, then we can account for some specifics associated with the platform, how the data is stored and arranged, and some other variables (many are unique to each project), we will evaluate it to determine whether or not the proposed method of transfer will be acceptable given the new platform’s constraints. 

If everything checks out, we can greenlight the next step in the process. 

1. Initial Data Transfer 

Once we have assessed the method we intend to use for the transfer, we can send over most if not all of your data to the new platform and check for accuracy, as well as to see that it all populated where it was supposed to. 

Our Migration scripts do the heavy lifting here, and move the actual data. After it’s all transferred over, then the work of checking it all begins. 

1. Front-End Data Alignment and Testing 

Once we’ve run all our scripts and sent over all of your data to your new platform, we need to make sure that it went where it was supposed to go, which naturally will vary for each store and the each new platform.

If your project entails redesign and development work, this is also the point at which we will transfer the new design out of the sandbox and onto the new store so we can begin quality assurance testing. 

The data that will need to be checked will vary according to the project, but since many of our clients are in eCommerce, big things to check are product options, imagery, pricing, and items like that. 

Another aspect of this step in the process is sending out an email blast to your customers informing them that their account information has changed; the email will not be sent until the migration is complete but at this point we may ask your help in approving the copy.

1. Resync

During the time in which your new store was being built and all your data was being transferred, your “old” store was still live, which means it would still be taking orders, enrolling new customers, and going about the other day to day motions of an eCommerce website. 

Before the launch date of your new website we need to perform a resync to ensure all of that data on your new website is up to date, including all of the changes that have been made during the period associated with the initial transfer. That way, you don’t lose any orders or new customers during that period. 

This, however, requires a short freeze, known as a freeze period, during which your website cannot accept any changes. Our goal is to minimize this period so your website experiences as little downtime as possible, but we recommend that our customers manually track any new order submissions or new account sign-ups during this period so that they can be added to the new store once it is live. 

1. Front-End Alignment Testing – Resync

Most of the quality assurance testing we do comes right after we initially transfer your data, but there is still a chance that hiccups can occur after the resync and freeze period. 

For this reason, we do a second short QA after the resync, just to make sure everything is where it is supposed to be, and the integrity of the data quality has been upheld. 

This second QA testing must be performed during the freeze period, so our goal is to make sure it occurs as quickly as possible. 

1. Launch 

Now the fun part – this is when we go live. This is the point at which all of our efforts collectively pay off, but it is an intricate and intensive process made complicated by data migration. 

At this point, we will want to send the password reset email blast to your book of existing customer accounts so they know that in order to continue accessing your online store they will need to update their account with a new password.

We also recommend the implementation of 301 redirects as any part of a migration strategy. If you do not implement 301 redirects and any of your URLs are not exactly the same as the old ones, all of the authority of that page will be lost, and your SEO efforts will be wasted. A 301 redirect implementation strategy can help prevent this migration complication. 

We also monitor your Google Search Console for a period of time after we migrate data, that way we can check for crawler issues and make sure your website is being crawled as necessary. 

After that, if all else is in order, your new store is live, and your data migration project was a success. 

Questions About Our Data Migration Process? 

Given the scope of the different types of data migrations and application migrations, made more complex by the volume of data, the data format, the source and target systems in question, and the data migration tools being used, it can be stressful to move it all. 

That said, we are here to help and have handled hundreds of successful migrations in the past. If you are considering a migration and are unsure about the steps of a data migration process (or if it is worth it to move data in the first place) feel free to get in touch with us and one of our specialists will be more than happy to help. 

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