Move your Joomla articles with their context intact

Which parts of your Joomla site own the content?

Start with one article and one page powered by an extension. They may look similar to a visitor while requiring different exports. For a move to WordPress, the direction-specific guide explains article fields and destination choices.

A Joomla version upgrade is a different job from moving the archive to another CMS. Include the version and essential components in the enquiry so the estimate covers the right work.

Available migration objects and capabilities depend on the selected source and target systems. Check current integration status before using this planning guide.

Articles, categories and the menus that expose them

Joomla can be a source or a prepared destination. The connection depends on the installed version and available access. Check core article data separately from records held by extensions, rather than treating everything visible on the site as an article.

Extensions and templates need their own destination

Components, modules, template positions and plugin behavior are separate from article data. A directory, booking system or comment extension may need a dedicated export. Restricted access, translation associations and custom fields need review before they are included.

Start with the extension list

A site owner may call everything in a news section “articles”, even when part of it lives in a separate component. That distinction changes the extraction work. Tell us which extensions manage content, users or forms, and which of them must have an equivalent on the new site.

You can then separate three decisions: what data to keep, how to obtain it, and who will build the destination functionality. This is also the point to identify old sections that no longer need to move.

An alias is only part of the URL story

For a Joomla migration, collect the addresses visitors actually use. Menu routes can give a page context that an article alias alone does not describe. An alias such as annual-review is not enough to establish whether the public page was under a news category, a company menu or another route.

Keep those discovered addresses in the redirect worksheet. Assign the final destination once, then update menu links and links inside articles against the same map.

Example: a Joomla news archive moving to WordPress

Suppose an article has an introduction, a longer body, a category and a guest byline. One agreed rule could use the introduction as the WordPress excerpt and combine the introduction with the remaining body for the full post. If the full text already repeats the introduction, that rule needs an exception.

The category is matched by its source identifier and parent, not just its label. The guest byline needs either an approved author account or a destination field that the theme displays. These are example decisions to test with your content. The Joomla to WordPress page sets out the broader compatibility questions.

Use the oldest article to expose route and formatting problems

For a trial article, save its complete public URL, introduction, full text, guest byline and one image reference. After import, check that the introduction appears once in the full article and in the intended excerpt. Follow the old public URL and the destination menu link; both should reach the intended article.

An alias match alone cannot prove that result. Keep a separate row for each useful legacy route in the URL worksheet. Also inspect older plugin tags and relative image paths: a new article may not exercise either problem. The cost guide explains why these exceptions affect the estimate.

How the Joomla archive is checked

1. 1. Identify the records: Distinguish core articles from extension-owned data.
2. 2. Test extraction: Read a varied sample with its categories, files and routes.
3. 3. Review the new pages: Check text, bylines, category placement, menus and access.
4. 4. Complete the transfer: Apply the agreed final-run and URL plan after the trial is accepted.

Technical references

Scope is reviewed against the source and destination documentation available for the project.

• Joomla web services documentation