by

WAC Clearinghouse Website Migration from MASA to WordPress

Industry

Education

Technology

WordPress, MASA

Services

UX/UI Audit & Redesign
WordPress Architecture & Custom Development
SEO Migration & Preservation
Advanced Search Implementation

Project Overview

The WAC Clearinghouse website https://wac.colostate.edu/ was previously hosted on the MASA platform. The client engaged Ebizon to migrate the entire ecosystem to WordPress to achieve better manageability, flexibility, and SEO performance while preserving a complex content structure and critical academic functionalities.

Key Scope:

  • Data Volume: 230 Books, 2,118 Journal articles, 117,111+ CompPile records, 10+ Resources, 15 Community pages, 25 Site Members/System Users, 15 Member/Admin Groups, 5 News items, 253+ Contributors, plus images, videos, PDFs
  • Pages: 60+ unique page types including Books, Journals, Repository, Community, About, Media, Teaching Resources
  • Functionalities: Keyword Search, Google Translate, CompPile Advanced Search, Glossary Search, TCSR iFrame
  • SEO: Preserve rankings, 301 redirects, metadata, URL aliases

Project Objectives

  1. Migrate the website from MASA to WordPress with a new look and feel that reflects modern UX standards and academic credibility.
  2. Ensure seamless transfer of content, functionalities, and SEO attributes with zero data loss and minimal downtime.
  3. Improve manageability for non-technical editors to update books, journals, and repository items.
  4. Enhance SEO performance through WordPress-native optimization and structured data.
  5. Maintain accessibility and performance across devices for a global academic audience.
  6. Preserve critical features like Compile advanced search, glossary search, and faceted filtering.
Book A 30 Minute Call

Project Execution

1. Design and Discovery Process

STEP 1: Usability Audit

  • Conducted UI/UX audit to identify interface bottlenecks on MASA site.
  • Competitor analysis of academic publishing sites and open-access repositories.
  • Deliverable: Audit Report with recommendations for navigation, search, and content discovery.

STEP 2: UI/UX Design

  • Created sitemap covering 60+ page types.
  • Developed high-fidelity Figma prototypes for key templates: Homepage, Book Publication Page, Journal Page, Resource Repository, Community/News, Search, About.
  • Designed mobile-first responsive layouts with academic branding, typography, and accessibility compliance.
  • Deliverables: Figma Designs, Sitemap

STEP 3: Feedback & Iterations

  • 2-3 design iteration cycles with Clearinghouse editorial team.
  • Final Design Sign-off before development sprint planning.

2. Development and Customization

  • Theme Implementation: Built on GeneratePress for performance. Recreated pages using Elementor Pro for editorial flexibility.
  • Custom Post Types: Books, Journals, CompPile Records, Resources, News, Contributors, Members, Groups.
  • Advanced Search: Implemented Algolia for CompPile with faceted search, Boolean operators, wildcard, starts-with/ends-with, real-time results, and sorting by relevance/date/author.
  • Glossary Search: Custom fields + Boolean search + advanced filtering.
  • Integrations: Google Translate plugin, Google CSE for site-wide keyword search, TCSR iFrame embed.
  • Mobile Responsive: Viewport meta tags, readable images for handheld screens, landscape/portrait optimization, no UI distortion.

3. Content Migration to WordPress

Website Audit & Content Analysis

  • Established staging environment mirroring MASA site.
  • Content inventory and mapping document: Pages, Posts, Categories, Tags aligned to WordPress structure.

Data Migration

  • Built custom migration scripts to transfer: Books, Journals, CompPile (117,111 records), Resources, Community, Members, Users, Groups, News, Contributors, media assets.
  • Data Filtering & Segregation: Ensured accurate mapping to custom post types without omissions.
  • Alias Creation: Custom URL aliases for key pages to maintain legacy links.

4. URL Redirection and SEO Preservation

Pre-Migration: Crawled MASA site, mapped new URLs to existing URLs, identified pages to eliminate/create, benchmarked metrics.
During Migration: Implemented 301 permanent redirects, updated internal links, updated XML sitemap, Google Search Console registration, robots.txt setup, on-page SEO migration of titles/descriptions/structured data.
Post-Migration: Monitored crawl errors, indexed pages count, architecture audit, updated external links, re-submitted disavow file.
Custom 404 Page: Designed to retain users and suggest relevant content.

5. Thorough Testing and Quality Assurance

Migration Testing by Ebizon

  • Database testing, content mapping testing, data integrity & cleanliness testing.
  • Verified all content templates, broken links via Xenu, image/gallery links, comments.
  • SEO testing: meta-tag validation, URL alias testing.

Functional Testing

  • All features tested: Keyword Search, Translate, CompPile, Glossary, iFrame.
  • Cross-browser, cross-device testing for responsive design.
  • Security testing: iThemes Security for malware scanning, brute force protection, file change detection; WordFence for 2FA, IP blocking; PerfMatter for hiding WP version, RSS hardening.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

  • 1-2 week lockdown period for client review.
  • UAT Meeting to walk through functionality.
  • Issues tracked in JIRA. Feedback vs. Bugs clearly separated to maintain scope.

6. Launch and Ongoing Support

  • Scheduled launch during low-traffic window to minimize impact on 4.5M annual users.
  • Post-launch monitoring: GA4 analytics, Search Console, uptime, 404 errors.
  • Knowledge transfer and training for Clearinghouse editors on WordPress + Elementor.
  • Ongoing support: plugin updates, security patching, performance optimization.
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Results & Feedback

MetricBefore (MASA)After (WordPress)Impact
Editorial ManageabilityDeveloper-dependent updatesEditors update Books/Journals via Elementor80% reduction in update turnaround time
Page Load Speed4.2s avg1.8s avg57% faster, improved Core Web Vitals
Mobile UsabilityLimited responsive issuesFull responsive, WCAG 2.1 AA alignedBounce rate on mobile down 22%
SEO PreservationBaseline98.7% of URLs 301-redirected, rankings retainedNo traffic loss post-launch, +12% organic in 3 months
Search PerformanceBasic CompPile searchFaceted, Boolean, real-time Algolia searchSearch usage up 35%, avg session depth +1.4 pages
Data Migration AccuracyN/A100% of 117,111+ CompPile records, 230 books, 2,118 journals migratedZero data loss reported
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Client’s Feedback

We wanted to set up a new server and then migrate our website to WordPress. Our main site had several integrations that relied on custom coding. The Ebizon team did an outstanding job of setting p our server, hardening it against attack, migrating our databases, and ensuring that our existing sites worked without problem. They responded quickly to our questions and communicated well through weekly project meetings and the use of Basecamp. When we started developing our new WordPress site, they brought in a team that created a custom site that not only duplicated the functionality of our existing site but improved it. They showed a genuine concern for making this a successful transition to a new server and a new main site. We’re happy to have been able to work with them.
 

Mike Palmquist
Publisher
 WAC Clearinghouse