The Ultimate Guide to Migrating Your Website to WordPress VIP

Confidently migrate with our WordPress VIP migration guide. Modernize your CMS, streamline workflows, and unlock enterprise growth with built-in performance optimization services and expert support.

A person holds a tablet displaying a digital guide titled “Migrating to WordPress VIP — Move Fast Without Breaking Things.” The cover features a stylized gold and white illustration of a suspension bridge on a dark gray background, with the WordPress VIP logo at the top. The layout conveys reliability, connection, and technical sophistication, symbolizing seamless migration and stability.

Table of Contents:

Move fast without breaking things

WordPress VIP is the open and intelligent experience builder, designed for performance, flexibility, and future-readiness. It’s the CMS foundation that adapts as the digital landscape evolves. 

This website migration guide explains how to confidently move to the WordPress VIP platform, with a clear path and expert support every step of the way. 

Why migrate?

Whether you’re hitting the limits of your current platform, managing growing content teams, or consolidating tech to cut costs, a migration to WordPress VIP is a chance to modernize and future-proof your digital operations.

And with WordPress powering over 40% of the web, we’re shaping the next standard: content that’s discoverable not just by search engines, but by AI.

Is it time to migrate?

Your CMS is slowing down your content team.

You’re struggling to integrate AI, analytics, or personalization tools.

Your current setup can’t scale with your growth.

Security and compliance are becoming risk areas.

You’re juggling too many tools and vendors.

You’re waiting for your current provider to build the features you need.

Your website is slow or crashes during traffic spikes.

Your CMS is slowing down your content team

When publishing takes too many steps, or workflows require constant developer involvement, innovation and productivity suffer. WordPress VIP streamlines creation so your content team can publish in minutes, not hours, without needing developer assistance.

You’re struggling to integrate AI, analytics, or personalization tools

Legacy platforms often lack the flexibility to connect with emerging technologies. WordPress VIP has built-in AI functionality for content optimization, creation, and measurement, and our open, interoperable architecture makes it easy to plug in advanced analytics and personalization engines, so you can innovate faster.

Your current setup can’t scale with your growth

As your audience, content library, and team grow, performance bottlenecks and resource limits become costly. WordPress VIP’s enterprise-grade infrastructure scales effortlessly, whether you’re adding 10 new sites or handling a 10x traffic surge.

Security and compliance are becoming risk areas

Security breaches and compliance failures can cost more than just money — they erode trust and damage audience relationships. WordPress VIP offers enterprise-level protections, encrypted workflows, and compliance support to meet even the strictest industry requirements.

You’re juggling too many tools and vendors

A fragmented tech stack drains budgets and slows down operations. WordPress VIP unifies your hosting, content management, analytics, and content operations into one streamlined platform, reducing complexity and vendor overhead.

You’re waiting for your current provider to build the features you need

Vendor roadmaps don’t always align with your business priorities. WordPress VIP’s open architecture, plugin ecosystem, and partner network let you add the functionality you need today, not months or years from now.

Your website is slow or crashes during traffic spikes

Nothing undermines audience trust like a site that’s sluggish or offline during big moments. WordPress VIP’s cloud infrastructure delivers consistently fast load times and 100% uptime, even during record-breaking traffic events.

Modern foundations for growth

“We needed to make sure things are lean, things are efficient, and things are set up in a way that we can scale a business. That’s originally why we decided to go over to WordPress VIP — to bring these websites into the modern era.”

Headshot of Aaron Segal from Recurrent Ventures

What you’ll gain by migrating to VIP

Faster publishing workflows

34% faster for The Times

Self-sufficient content teams 

Enterprise-grade security and compliance

Improved SEO and content performance

120% increase in organic search traffic YoY for Her Campus Media

Faster, more reliable websites

VIP delivered 100% uptime during 2024 presidential election week across all sites

Built-in analytics (Parse.ly) and AI readiness

Assembling your migration team

At a minimum, you’ll need:

  • WordPress engineer (in-house or agency)
  • Project manager/stakeholder
  • QA lead

Depending on complexity:

  • Security or compliance reviewers
  • Editorial/content validation
  • Marketing or adtech support

Supporting players for the migration

You can migrate to WordPress VIP in one of three ways:

Self-serve

This approach gives you full control using VIP’s tools, documentation, and support as needed.

Partner-led

Work with a trusted WordPress VIP agency partner to manage the migration, combining their experience with your strategic input.

VIP-led

For a fully supported, low-lift experience, our experts handle the migration end-to-end, ensuring a smooth and efficient transition.

Migration made effortless

“Having both the migration service and the [self-serve] tools was really nice. Once we handed over the keys, it was just ‘sit back’ and wait for the staging site to be spun up for us to QA and approve it. It was nice not having to worry about a number of different things that you typically do. It was a very VIP experience, pun intended.”

Headshot of Ramsey Mohsen from Everhance

The WordPress VIP migration process

Every migration follows a predictable six-phase path, adapted to your needs, timeline, and team structure.

1. Onboard (1 week)

This is where the journey begins. We provision your development and staging environments, connect your team to your GitHub repository, and provide hands-on support to help you familiarize yourself with WordPress VIP’s tools, dashboards, and workflows. 

Our team ensures your developers are ready to go from day one with guided training, support resources, and analytics (Parse.ly) setup if needed.

Optional: Build phase 

If you’re migrating from a non-WordPress CMS or planning a redesign, you’ll need to rebuild your site on WordPress VIP. This involves:

  • Conducting a content audit and mapping it to the WordPress structure.
  • Developing a new theme and templates.
  • Implementing plugins and integrations.
  • Transforming and migrating legacy content and media.
  • Running initial validation and QA.

2. Plan (1-2 weeks)

We collaborate with your internal team or partner agency to:

  • Define the migration path (self-service, partner-led, or VIP-led).
  • Establish the scope of work.
  • Set expectations.
  • Develop a detailed project timeline.

This is also when we align stakeholders, identify any blockers, and finalize which tools and content will be carried over.

3. Migrate (1-5 weeks)

Execute the migration strategy by moving the following into the VIP environment:

  • Codebase.
  • Structured content.
  • Media assets.
  • Plugins.

Your team (or partner agency) integrates with GitHub workflows, imports databases, and configures any necessary dependencies. VIP’s team reviews code and provides support throughout.

4. Validate (2 weeks)

A rigorous QA phase ensures your site performs as expected. This includes:

  • Manual and automated QA testing.
  • SEO and metadata validation.
  • Link and redirect testing.
  • Third-party integration checks (analytics, ad tech, SSO, etc.).
  • Accessibility and performance reviews.

This is where content integrity and discoverability meet. Your structured content is tested to be both user-friendly and AI-ready.

Validation that set a new standard

From the beginning of their migration, Penske Media Corporation appreciated WordPress VIP’s expert guidance in the validation process, so much so that it inspired them to develop their own internal code checks for other projects.

“Everyone from the CEO on down loved the idea of having those quality checks in place.”

Headshot of Gabriel Koen from Penske Media Corporation

5. Launch (1 day)

Time to flip the switch. Final delta imports are performed to sync any last-minute content changes, then the DNS is pointed to your site on WordPress VIP. 

Our team provides day-of support to monitor site health and resolve any launch-time issues immediately. For customers using reverse proxies or external CDNs, we’ll verify configurations in advance.

A smooth switch to VIP

“Sometimes these things can turn into days… where you’re still troubleshooting, you’re still figuring things out. Your team is basically sitting idle, which is not ideal. But once we said go, we were able to do [six website] launches within a week.”

Headshot of Ramsey Mohsen from Everhance

6. Operate (ongoing)

After launch, you’re not on your own. With 24/7 support, continuous performance optimization tools, and access to experts in the vast WordPress developer community, your team is equipped to grow, innovate, and evolve long-term.

You’re not just solving today’s publishing needs. You’re also building on a foundation that adapts as the digital landscape changes.

Migration summary

From day one through ongoing operation, WordPress VIP makes migration smooth and stress-free, so your team can concentrate on driving growth and innovation.

Phase & Description

Average time


1. Onboard

Onboard, access, setup, learn.

1 week


2. Plan

Develop detailed migration strategy and timeline.

Three migration approaches are available.

1–2 weeks


3. Migrate

Securely transfer site data to the VIP platform, perform basic validation.

1–5 weeks, varies with approach and complexity


4. Validate

Test site functionality and data integrity comprehensively.

2 weeks


5. Launch

Push the migrated site live on the VIP platform.

1 day


6. Operate

Position your organization for the AI-native web with ongoing innovation, support, and performance optimization.

forever (we hope!)


Total

Onboard to Operate average (most WP to WP customer timelines fall in this range, though some are shorter and some longer).

~5–12 weeks

Save weeks, not days

Save 3+ weeks with our Migration & Launch Service.

What shapes your migration

Factor

What it affects


Site size

Time to move and QA data


Legacy code/plugins

Compatibility and upgrade needs


Access to resources and approvals

Timeline alignment


Multisite or multilingual setup

Coordination complexity, testing overhead, and architectural considerations


Security & compliance review needs

Planning, coordination, and review time


Common migration pitfalls (and how we can help avoid them)

Risk

How VIP mitigates it


SEO traffic loss

Redirect mapping and ensuring site speed with performance services.

It’s possible to see a shift in traffic temporarily, but VIP customers have experienced up to 15% improvements in traffic in the month following their migration.


Site performance issues

Performance services and load-testing


Launch day downtime

Pre-launch dry runs, expert support, and zero downtime expectation

“Any downtime, any outage costs us money by the minute. It was really nice to know that we would have expertise and developer help with the migration.”

Headshot of Ramsey Mohsen from Everhance

Editorial disruption

Off-time cutover and delta migrations


Security vulnerabilities

Encrypted migration, locked environments, and automated code-scanning


More than migration support

“Since I’ve started working with WordPress VIP, there’s that collaborative and partnership feel about it. And the fact that we’re able to ask for direction, ask for ideas, ask for clarity, not just on a strategic and large level, but literally on a bug fix, feature implementation level is something I’ve never experienced before.”

Headshot of Nici Catton from Penske Media Corporation

Migration success checklist

1. Key roles

WordPress engineer

Project manager/stakeholder

QA lead

2. Pre-migration readiness

Inventory all plugins, features, and integrations

Identify content to keep, archive, or rewrite

Confirm internal roles and responsibilities

3. SEO & analytics

Build a redirect map (301s)

Preserve metadata, schema, and structured content

Set pre-migration benchmarks for Core Web Vitals

Set pre-migration benchmarks for Core Web Vitals

Resolve any 404 errors

4. Launch day

Test forms, search, nav

Perform delta import or content freeze

Final QA and approval sign-offs

Schedule DNS switch and configure CDN

Monitor for issues with support on standby

Results from our customers

Vox Media

300 sites migrated in 1 year


Nexstar

100 sites migrated in 6 months


Adweek

+82% pageviews YoY

100% uptime during peak traffic


VentureBeat

90% reduction in site response time


Recurrent Ventures

+14% session duration

-16% bounce rate

+14% time on site YoY


Ready to move?

We built the open web. Now let’s build the AI-native web, together.

We’ll help you choose the best approach and build a migration plan that fits your team, timeline, and goals.