Website Migration Plan

We are in the process of transitioning www.mpuuc.org from our current hosing provider, http://genoa.be/, to Squarespace.  The purpose of this transition is to make our web presence easier to maintain.  

The Problem

The current website hosted on genoa.be requires technical knowledge of HTML/XML coding, FTP file transfer, etc to make even some simple changes to the page (e.g. uploading weekly sermon files).  As a result, webmasters become the bottleneck for keeping the site up to date, and the information often falls behind.  Some pages can be edited using rudimentary page editors, but many others require technical support.

Proposal

We should use Squarespace instead.  Squarespace is designed to be simple enough for anyone to use to create a web site.  It has all the functionality we need “out of the box”, with a simple interface that many more people will be comfortable using.  This will allow us to “democratize” the administration of the web site, which will result in the contents of the site being more current and useful for both our membership and the community.

What we have already done

  1. [Kevin] Create a Squarespace business account (cost: $16/month)
  2. [Kevin] Re-create the basic structure of the MPUUC website in squarespace
  3. [Kevin] Copy over a lot (but not all) of the content from www.mpuuc.org

What we still need to do

Phase 1 – Preparation

  1. [Kevin/?] Create a new domain name (e.g. “archive.mpuuc.org”) and have it reference the old website. 
    1. Register “archive.mpuuc.org” with GoDaddy.com
    2. Work with genoa.be to host this domain name
  2. [Team] Test that old website continues to work when accessed via archive.mpuuc.org hostname
  3. [Team] Create a complete list of all regular website maintenance tasks, and who does them.
  4. [Kevin] Train Sandra and others how to use Squarespace to update content

Phase 2 – Go Live

  1. [Kevin] Set up “URL mappings” so that old links continue to work and correctly redirect to archive.mpuuc.org
  2. [Kevin/?] Change “www.mpuuc.org” so that it points to our Squarespace page. 
    1. This can be done from within the Squarespace settings menu.  Settings -> Domains -> “Connect a third-party domain”

Phase 3 – Clean Up

  1. [Team] Transfer all remaining content from the current site into Squarespace.