Writing & MediaFree
CMS Migration Redirect and Asset Audit
Send your content export and the new URL structure, and get a redirect map, an asset dependency check, and a citation-exposure ranking of what breaks first.
A CMS migration checklist is a redirect map: every old URL paired with a new one and a 301 rule, prioritized by traffic or backlinks. Google's own site-move guide describes exactly this, a URL mapping followed by server-side permanent redirects. It does not cover two things that break silently inside an otherwise successful redirect. An embedded image or PDF carries its own URL that the page-level rule never touches, and an external citation can point at a URL nobody flagged as a priority.
On The Bellwood Courier's migration, an invented paper moving 4,180 archived URLs, 612 were low-value tag and search pages retired rather than redirected, leaving 3,568 real pieces to map. Those pieces carried 10,185 embedded asset references across 6,240 unique files, and 5,120 of those were self-hosted on the old CMS's own domain rather than an outside service. Checked against the new system's asset manifest, 433 had never been imported at all, leaving 501 pieces, 14 percent of the archive, with a broken image the day the redirects go live.
The same pass crosses the 3,568 real URLs against a backlink export. 287 carry at least one external citing link, 1,340 links in total, and 24 of those 287 still had no target URL mapped at all, sitting unmapped while lower-traffic pages further down the list already had a rule. A piece's fact-check sign-off record needs that same protection. Run this before the redirect rules go live, so the pieces something outside the newsroom depends on are not the ones discovered broken after launch.
A redirect map is checked at the page. A reader hits the asset one level down
Every migration guide agrees on the page-level convention: old URL, new URL, redirect type, priority by traffic or backlinks, a test-status column. Alphonso Labs' and 5N2 Digital's redirect map templates both add a note that images and PDFs matter, as an aside inside the same row structure built for pages. Nothing in that structure catches an asset that moved on its own schedule, because an image's URL is not the article's URL, and a page-level redirect rule has no reason to ever look at it.
On the worked archive, the 6,240 unique embedded files break down by hosting location first. 5,120 are self-hosted on the old CMS's own asset domain, which breaks the moment that domain goes dark; the other 1,120 are hosted by an outside wire service or embed provider, which survives untouched. Only the self-hosted set is at risk, and checking it against the new system's own import manifest, rather than assuming a successful page migration carried its media with it, is what finds the 433 that never made the trip.
The citation cross-check runs the same logic one level out. A backlink or citation export names which old URLs something outside the newsroom, another publication, an academic paper, a court filing, actually points at. Crossing that list against the redirect map's own completion status surfaces the pieces where an outside citation is about to break, 24 of them on the worked archive. That list is not the same list a traffic report would produce.
How it works
Send the export
Attach the content export with its URLs and body HTML, and describe the new URL structure it is moving to.
Split and map
River separates real content from low-value pages, then proposes a target URL for each piece that is actually moving.
Check assets and citations
Every embedded asset is checked against the new system's manifest, and every URL against your backlink export.
Read the sequence
A Doc orders what to fix first; a Sheet holds every row for whoever runs the actual redirect rules.
What you get
- Splits the export into real content and low-value pages, so retired tag and search URLs skip needless redirects
- Resolves every embedded asset reference to a unique file, so one reused photo is not counted six times
- Flags every self-hosted asset missing from the new system's import manifest before readers find it first
- Names every piece carrying an orphaned asset, so a page that redirects cleanly can still be broken underneath
- Crosses the archive against a backlink export to rank pieces by outside dependence on the URL
- Flags the highest-cited pieces still missing a target URL, so they outrank pages nobody links to
- Builds the redirect map and asset check as one sortable Sheet, plus a Doc ordering the sequence
Common questions
Isn't a redirect map enough on its own?
It is enough for the page itself, which is what every migration checklist verifies. It is not enough for what the page embeds. An image, PDF or embed carries its own URL, and a page-level 301 rule never looks at the file underneath it. On the worked archive, 14 percent of migrated pieces still showed a broken image once the asset check ran.
What if we don't have a backlink or citation export?
The redirect map and the asset check both run without one; only the citation-exposure ranking depends on it. Search Console's own site-move guidance is a reasonable place to pull one from if you don't already track this. Without it, prioritize by internal traffic instead, and treat the citation ranking as a pass worth adding once you have the data.
Why do low-value pages get retired instead of redirected?
Because a tag, author or search-results page usually has no single equivalent in a new CMS's structure, and forcing a 1:1 redirect for one sends visitors somewhere that does not answer what brought them there. The worked archive retired 612 of 4,180 URLs this way, about 15 percent, rather than mapping them to an approximate destination nobody asked for.
What counts as an orphaned asset?
A file embedded in the body of a piece that is moving, hosted on the old CMS's own domain rather than an outside service, with no matching entry in the new system's asset import manifest. It is not a guess: the check is a direct comparison against whatever manifest the new system actually produced, not an assumption that a successful page migration carried its media along.
Does this replace testing the redirects after launch?
No. Google's own guidance recommends monitoring both the old and new URLs after a site move and keeping redirects live well beyond launch day. This audit runs before that, so the sequence you test against already accounts for the assets and citations a page-only map would miss.
Where does this sit in the rest of the desk's work?
Before the redirect rules are written, as a one-time project worth its own slot on the editorial calendar rather than an assumption that it happens alongside the daily report. Where an outside contributor's commission agreement set terms on how long a piece stays published, that record decides the question, not the migration itself.
CMS Migration Redirect and Asset Audit
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