Content systems Kiwi insights
Custom CMS migration: rebuild, migrate, or simplify?
Decide how much of an existing content system to retain by auditing content, editorial tasks, URLs, governance, and operational risk first.
A CMS migration can be a small editorial cleanup, a technical move, or a full content-system redesign. Treating all three as the same project causes unnecessary rebuild work and risks losing URLs, content ownership, or publishing continuity.
Inventory the content and the work around it
List live pages, files, structured records, integrations, redirects, editors, reviewers, and publishing tasks. For each item, decide whether it is current, accurate, unique, and still useful. The IRS publishing guidance uses those criteria to support maintaining, updating, removing, or consolidating content; they are a useful discipline even for a much smaller site.
Choose the smallest responsible migration
- Simplify when content is redundant, unowned, or no longer supports a user task.
- Migrate when the content model and editorial workflow remain sound but the platform needs to change.
- Rebuild when editors cannot safely perform their work, the model cannot represent the needed content, or important integrations and delivery requirements have changed.
Plan continuity before changing production
Map old URLs to their intended destinations, transform sample content, test editor tasks, preserve a rollback path, and assign ownership for post-launch fixes. A migration is not complete when records import successfully; it is complete when people can publish, visitors can reach the right information, and the team can maintain the result.
Kiwi can help assess content, model a focused migration, and implement an agreed website system. Platform licensing, security configuration, records retention, and legal obligations require the appropriate owners.