Importing An Exisiting Website

[clanfc]

I was wondering if it is possible to import exisiting websites, sub-domains, and modules into Joomla without starting over. The reason is because I have put alot of time into my website and really don't want to start over.

Can somebody help me?

[tusker]

Are you using some other CMS like joomla or it is pure collection of html and php scripts? Tell more about your existing website so people here can know how long it will take to migrate from one platform or other to joomla.

This could be very easy and also can be very tedious.. it depends upon your existing setup.

[clanfc]

Right now, I am using raw HTML and PHP scripts. One of my clan members was going to install a different CMS, but I find Joomla better.

So, a pure collection. I edit them using Notepad and my FTP, which can get tedious in its own way.

[tusker]

Right now, I am using raw HTML and PHP scripts. One of my clan members was going to install a different CMS, but I find Joomla better.

So, a pure collection. I edit them using Notepad and my FTP, which can get tedious in its own way.

Than transferring to joomla is not a difficult job. Just install and try it on your localhost. Create appropriate sections and categories for your site. Copy articles (copy html using tiny editor in joomla) into those categories and sections and test fire it. if everything works well upload it to your hosting environment.

If you have thousands of pages this will be a difficult task.

There are few other things also that will affect your site, like your urls will be changed so you need to give 301 redirects to guide search engine bots properly to new locations. This also could be a long and tedious process. I have experienced this before and it is too boring to do that manually. (I was upgrading from joomla 1.0.x to 1.5.x)

Look at the other factors too like your search engine rankings will be lost due to new urls. Time and labor you give to get things proper and many more hidden things that is going to come up after a new installation.