Stop 7 of 9 · Later
Migrations and custom code on builders
Moving a client off a builder without losing their search traffic, the custom code a builder actually allows, and the risk list you quote from.
When the builder stops being the answer
Four or five times a year one of Dany's twenty asks for something Wix cannot do, or their site has grown past what a builder handles well. A migration is the most dangerous job a small studio takes, because the client already has traffic, and traffic is the thing a bad move destroys quietly.
Everything here is about not losing what the client already has. The new site being nicer is the easy part.
Count before you quote
| Count | Why it decides the price |
|---|---|
| Every page and its exact address | The redirect map is one line per address |
| Forms and where they deliver | A form that goes to a builder inbox has to go somewhere new |
| CMS collections and their fields | A blog with 140 posts is a data job, not a design job |
| Third-party embeds and scripts | Booking, chat, reviews and analytics all need re-fitting |
Walk this site in the tab and inventory it. Every page with its full address and page title, every form with the fields it collects, every third-party embed or script you can see, every CMS-driven section, and anything that only appears on one page. One table per category. Do not sign in to anything and do not submit any form.
[attach the page list from the inventory and the new sitemap] Build the redirect map: one row per old address, the new address it should go to, and a confidence mark. Where no new page matches, say so rather than guessing, and suggest the nearest relevant page with a reason. Flag any old address with traffic in the Search Console export that has no obvious home. Output as a table I can hand to the host.
Read the inventory and write the risk list for this migration. Each risk names what breaks, who notices, how likely it is, and what we do to prevent it. Include anything the client owns rather than us, and anything that needs their supplier. Sort by what costs the client money if it goes wrong.
Custom code inside the builder
Sometimes the answer is not a migration. A booking calculator, a quote form with logic, a bit of interaction: builders allow some of this through a custom code panel, an embed block or their own scripting layer, and the rules differ by platform and plan. Read the builder's own current documentation before you quote, because it changes, and price the maintenance as well as the build. Custom code inside somebody else's platform is code you will be asked about after the next platform update.
Whatever Claude Code writes for a builder still gets read and tested by a person, and pasted into the live site by that person. There is no pull request in a builder, so Dany is the merge.
The measurable
Two numbers after the switch. Errors on old addresses in Search Console at day 14, which should be zero and is the redirect map's report card. And organic clicks in the month after against the month before, which is the number the client will ask about whether or not you offer it.