The short answer
Separate migration decisions into content equivalence, URL mapping, metadata, media and release behavior. A new interface is not a complete migration if valuable old pages and destinations remain unaccounted for. Review the old inventory before switching hosts or enabling redirects.
A worked example
A fictional WordPress archive contains a how-to article, an outdated promotion and a tool page. The how-to may need an equivalent new article; the promotion needs an editorial retirement decision; the tool needs functional testing. Redirecting all three to a general blog index would conceal these different requirements and disappoint returning readers.
A practical checklist
- Inventory old URLs with their purpose, traffic evidence when available and editorial status. Assign a proposed action and responsible reviewer to each important route.
- Check equivalence between old and new content. Preserve useful assets, attribution and relevant metadata while fixing unsupported or outdated claims.
- Test response behavior and the approved mapping before cutover. Keep rollback, indexing controls and post-launch monitoring in the release plan rather than treating them as design tasks.
What to avoid
Avoid claiming the old archive has been migrated when new original articles were merely added. This journal expansion is new content; it does not recreate the full legacy archive or automatically activate redirects. Owner approval is still required for the actual production migration.
A useful follow-up
Do 60 new posts replace a legacy migration audit?
No. New content and legacy URL preservation are separate workstreams, and each needs its own evidence and release decision.
