Gspikes iconGspikesSep 1, 2026 ~8 min source read

The Complete Drupal 7 → Drupal 11 Migration Checklist: 52 Steps, In Order

A 52-step, seven-phase checklist Gspikes uses for every Drupal 7 migration to Drupal 10/11. Covers audit, content model, module mapping, 301 mapping, build, verification, and a rollback-friendly cutover.

Gspikes: The Complete Drupal 7 → Drupal 11 Migration Checklist: 52 Steps, In Order

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Useful takeaways from this story.

Treat the migration as a sequence of 52 discrete decisions across seven phases so nothing is missed.

Redirect discipline and a complete crawl of every legacy URL are essential to preserve search rankings.

The useful part

Before going all-in, I led SEO at Chain Reaction — one of the region's largest digital agencies — and shipped production code at Orange and Forbes. LinkedIn Last updated · September 2026 Roughly 30% of the Drupal web still runs Drupal 7 — nineteen months past end of life. Every step on this list earned its place by being skipped on some site we were later called to rescue.

How it works

  • Freeze a traffic and ranking baseline — export Analytics and Search Console data now.
  • Find the custom code — custom modules, template overrides, and the hardcoded database queries someone left in a theme in 2014.
  • Interview the editors — the workflows the site must keep are in their heads, not the codebase.
  • Document field-type conversions — especially text formats and anything stored as serialized data.
  • Design the editorial workflow — content moderation states in core replace whatever Workbench arrangement D7 had.

What to take from it

It's long because migrations fail in the details — but each step is one decision, and none of them is mysterious. First, this checklist is platform-agnostic about your destination version: if you're still choosing between Drupal 10 and 11, that decision has its own guide — for most sites migrating in 2026, go straight to 11. Second, the summary card below is free to print, share, and reuse with attribution.

Example or evidence

  • Build the 301 map — every legacy URL to its new home, exactly one hop, no chains.
  • "It ran without errors" is not the same as "everything arrived." Rebuild the theme in Twig — and make the design-debt decision consciously: pixel-parity port or refresh, never an accidental mix.
  • Field Notes Get the next one by email Research on Drupal, WordPress and search.
  • Inventory every module — enabled, disabled, and the ones nobody remembers installing.

Details worth keeping

This is the checklist we run on every Drupal 7 → 10/11 migration. Fifty-two steps, seven phases, in the order we actually do them. Print it, pin it next to the migration board.

Related coverage

  • Gspikes: The 52-step checklist tells you what to do.
  • Gspikes: Drupal 11 is on 36% of reporting Drupal sites — and climbing at roughly half the speed Drupal 10 managed at the same age.
  • Gspikes: Joomla 3 has been unsupported since 2023. An honest look at the three destinations — Joomla 5, WordPress or Drupal — what actually breaks, and what it costs.
  • Gspikes: Most articles with this title are written by Drupal shops.
  • Gspikes: We measured server response time on all 424 Drupal sites in the US federal and state.gov registry. Pantheon vs Acquia, CDN tails, and 12 sites on unsupported Drupal.

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