Still Running on an Old Drupal Site? Read This Before You Touch a Single Line of Code

You launched your site on Drupal a few years ago. Maybe it was a government contract, an NGO project, or a corporate CMS decision. It felt powerful at first but now, every update feels like defusing a bomb. Pages break. Modules vanish. Nobody on the team wants to touch the backend.

The person who built the site? Long gone. You can’t rebuild the whole thing right now, but doing nothing isn’t working either.

If that sounds like you, you’re not alone, and you’re not stuck. A lot of Nigerian companies, especially digital agencies, fintechs, media houses, and government-backed portals, built their websites on Drupal years ago. Back then, Drupal 7 or 8 was the gold standard. Flexible, robust, enterprise-grade.

But now it’s 2025. Drupal 7 is end-of-life. Drupal 8 is long gone. And your old site? It's bloated, slow, riddled with custom code, and your devs have started whispering about "replatforming."

But let’s face it, starting from scratch isn’t always an option.

So how do you upgrade safely? How do you untangle legacy modules, custom templates, and dated themes without tanking SEO, losing data, or breaking your CMS logic?

This guide is for you if you need a practical, phased way to modernize your platform, regain control without tearing it all down.

Audit Before You Act. Yes, Even If You’re in a Hurry.

Before you panic-hire a dev or migrate a thing, audit the mess you’re sitting on.

Start with:

· What modules do you have?
· Which ones are still supported?
· What custom stuff was added over time (and does anyone remember why)?
· What parts of the site actually get traffic?

You’re not just listing things here—you’re figuring out what you actually need to carry forward. This step will save you months. Maybe even money.

Tools to use:

· Upgrade Status Module: Scans for deprecated code, unsupported modules, and messy paths.
· Export the results and keep them. This is now your blueprint, your checklist, your weapon.

Separate What’s Broken From What’s Still Useful

This is where a lot of teams fall into the trap: thinking everything must move to Drupal 10. That’s not true.

Some of your legacy modules might have been workarounds for features that now exist natively in newer versions. Others might be so broken it’s faster to rebuild them in something cleaner.

Quick tip:
If your site uses Webform, Views, Token, or Pathauto — you’re in luck. Those are Drupal 10 ready. But custom payment integrations like Paystack or Remita? You’ll need to rewrite those. Most old setups used hand-rolled PHP wrappers. They won’t survive the upgrade.

Never Upgrade Production. Build a Clean Instance.

Don’t test on your live site. Ever.

Start with a clean install of Drupal 10 and rebuild major parts manually:

· Content types
· Views
· Blocks
· Menus

This is boring work, but it's clean work. You’ll avoid pulling old tech debt into a shiny new system. Copy/paste helps. And don’t carry your old CSS along—it’s probably slowing things down.

Start theming from scratch. Use Claro or Olivero. Or hire a designer to make something custom—now’s your chance to level up the user experience.

Handle Content Like It’s Your Business Asset (Because It Is)

Your site isn’t just design and modules. It’s years of posts, data, media, custom fields. That needs care.

Use Drupal's built-in Migrate module suite. Run test migrations with a small sample first—say, 10 pages. Don’t assume it’ll all go well. It rarely does.

Watch for:

· Broken media paths
· Lost custom fields (like “State,” “Zone,” or “LGA”)
· Disconnected taxonomies

Local tip: Many older Nigerian news sites and blogs built heavy on freeform HTML blocks. If that’s you, expect to write some cleanup scripts or assign it to a frontend dev for manual sanitization.

Fix What Google Will Notice

Before you switch anything live, go deep on Quality Assurance.

We’re not just testing if “the site loads.”

You need to check:

· All page URLs (especially if you’ve had any SEO success)
· Redirects (301s from old slugs to new ones)
· Media files and downloads
· Analytics tracking
· Google Tag Manager firing
· Multilingual toggles
· User roles and permissions (especially for admins and editors)

Use tools like Site Audit module, Google Search Console, and Ahrefs (if budget allows).

Also, clear all caches. If you’re using Cloudflare, purge edge caches too. That “one missing stylesheet” issue? It’s probably a CDN hiccup.

Plan Your Launch Like an Event. Not an Afterthought.

The best migration can still flop with a bad launch plan.

So:

· Schedule launch for midnight or weekend (low traffic).
· Let your team and your clients know.
· Set up real-time uptime monitors (Uptime Robot is free).
· Check mobile responsiveness, not just desktop.
· Have a rollback plan—even if it’s just flipping DNS back for a few hours.

Your Site Is Modernized. Now Future-Proof It.

A successful upgrade isn’t the end. It’s a starting point.

· Set up regular updates (and document them).
· Use a staging environment to test future changes.
· Keep a log of module updates and bugs.
· Train your internal team on how to manage content again.
· If your tech lead leaves, your site shouldn’t collapse.

Better yet, consider a hybrid dev setup—local dev for fast fixes, external partner (like us) for major upgrades.

Bonus: Why This Guide Exists

Because we’ve seen the mess. We’ve fixed it more times than we care to count.

At Quantum Apps, we’ve partnered with agencies that still ran on Drupal 7. News portals where one update broke 3,000 stories. NGO directories that lost 2 years of form data during a rushed migration. We've helped them walk away from chaos. without losing their data, their SEO, or their sanity.

You Don’t Need to Start From Scratch. You Need to Start With a Plan.

Don’t listen to anyone telling you to “just rebuild.” And don’t let fear keep you locked into a broken setup.

There’s a smarter way. This was it.

If you want help turning this checklist into action, book a call with us through the link below. If you just need to talk it through with someone who’s done it before, we’re around.

And yes, you can absolutely share this guide with your developer. They’ll thank you later.