Content migration has become a vital part of any website redesign project or the digital transformation journey, in itself. Right strategy and planning is the key to making this journey successful.

Let us try to understand the basic high-level thought process that we should follow for content migration when we are migrating to AEM or redesigning the existing AEM implementation.

Process

In the content migration process in AEM, four key steps must be followed, each with its own defined process:

successful aem content migration

Content Evaluation

This step is the foundation for the entire AEM content migration process. Here, we:

Define the content
Identify the types of content
Find the current source and state of the content

Once you define and identify the types of content, perform a content evaluation, both with respect to quantity and quality. After this, you can filter all the outdated content from the evaluation metrics and finalize the content to be migrated.

Content Mapping

Once you finalize the list of content that needs to be migrated, start the mapping between the old and the current JCR properties in the AEM. During this process, identify all the attributes from the old system that needs to be migrated and all the corresponding attributes in the AEM JCR, which needs to be populated. It can effectively be 1:1 or 1:m mapping.

Content Migration

Now that you know which content and mapping need to be migrated, focus on designing the right solution to implement it. Based on various factors, like volume, content cleansing, structure, technical feasibility and time vs cost, we can choose from one of the below methods:

Manual Migration

When there is few pages/content to be migrated
Lot of content cleaning is needed
Content in the old system is not structured and compatible with the new system
Labor intensive and time-consuming

Automation Migration

Old system has a structured content
There is a large number of pages/content to be migrated
Not much content cleaning is required
Technical feasibility has to be done before finalizing

Hybrid Migration

There is a large number of pages/content to be migrated
There is structured and unstructured content in the old system
Less content needs to be cleaned

Content Verification

The final step of the process would be to verify the content in AEM, which is migrated and ensure it is migrated to the right location. You also need to verify that the migrated content in AEM and the newly authored content, coexist without any issues.

Key things to consider

Once you have a clear grasp on the whole process, it is very important to consider these key points to implement the whole process successfully:

Identifying the right team
Choosing the right tools

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