Can you move a Web site based on a proprietary Content Management System to which you have only a customer’s access? The short answer would seem to be ‘no’. One UK Web company includes this question among its FAQs: “Can I move my CMS site to another hosting company?” The answer it gives is “This is not possible as the CMS software that we have developed must remain on our servers.”
There is a general summary of the position on an Australian Web site. This is (part of) what they say about CMS sites:
“Content Management Systems – a mixed blessing
An alternative to a personal web designer is a CMS or Content Management System. The main benefit of a CMS is the ability to update your site yourself – within certain parameters – over the internet, and rolling all your costs into one monthly payment. But you need to go into a CMS contract with your eyes open.
1. CMS do not provide distinctive sites. They are, almost by definition, formulaic. Look at some and see what you think.
2. You don’t own your CMS site in the same way that you own a site designed by a web designer. With CMS you own the content but you cannot walk away from your CMS contract with your site intact – your site can only operate on the CMS operator’s platform.
3. With a CMS website you are locked in – you cannot change to a hosting company that provides more competitive rates or better features without losing your website.”
Point 3 in effect repeats what the English company say about their own sites.
So what was I to do when I was asked to ‘move’ exactly such a Web site, by a potential client to whom I had been recommended—by people I would prefer not to let down?
Of course I said ‘yes’. I committed myself to recreating the site, i.e., constructing a completely new site that would look just like the client’s current site, with a completely new database, a new set of scripts (PHP rather than the current ASP), all the existing images (several hundred of them) and a client interface that let her do everything she had done with the old CMS.
How did I get on in this foolhardy enterprise? Answer in Part 2.
