As much as I should avoid hopping across blogging platforms, I often do it almost yearly. Here's what I had written about seven years ago, which is applicable even today.

It is August. I like to think I am a writer. Somewhere deep down, I also know, though, that I am first a developer. So every August, I happen to relook at the current setup for my presence on the web, go back to the drawing board and change things.

Such a migration is not cheap, though. In addition to the effort required to learn the new platform and get everything to work just right, there's an additional cost. I make sure nothing that the reader expects breaks. Do I feel guilty if it does? Absolutely. Should I? Well, that's debatable.

Jack leans towards not worrying about this and has a very valid reason.

I am not writing for money or influence or popularity. I write to better understand what I’m thinking about, and sometimes share the result. I write so that I have a record of those things. I write, almost entirely, for me.

The first statement applies even to me—I don't write for money or popularity. If I did, I would be much more structured with this place. But I still like to keep things clean during the migration. I know this because, coincidentally, I went through such a transition only recently and have spent days setting things right. I make sure I never break these couple of things.

  • Feed URLs are a must-fix for me. I do not know how many people subscribe to my feed, but I know some do. I don't want to lose the few readers I have established connections with.
  • I ensure I don't break the old links by setting redirects. Why? Because I hate link rot. Can I cover all the links? Nope. But I can indeed focus on the links that people regularly visit. Site analytics help here. Looking at the top visited posts tells me which ones are linked and need fixing.

I did the same with my recent migration to Kirby. I kept the feed URL the same and added routes to redirect to new URLs for posts visited most often. To digress slightly, I even kept the design the same to make the migration seamless for everyone, including me. Especially me.

Did I have to do any of that? Of course not. Would I have felt guilty if I didn't? Absolutely. So even though I am not responsible to anyone, I fuss about fixing stuff for a little peace of mind, if for nothing else.