Advisor Website Platform Migration
Leaving an advisor website platform without losing your content.
Advisors on a subscription website platform rarely stay because they love it. They stay because leaving looks like it costs the articles, the search rankings, and the ability to publish. This guide covers what to export before you give notice, what to ask your current vendor in writing, and how a migration preserves the URLs you already earned.
This guide is general information, not legal, compliance, or investment advice. Your agreement with your current vendor governs what you can take, and your CCO or counsel makes every final call.
What Actually Breaks
The article is not the fragile part.
Firms worry about losing the writing. In practice the writing is the easiest thing to recover. The damage happens in the details nobody exports, because those details are what carried the search value.
The URLs
An article that sat at one address for 4 years accumulated every link, citation, and ranking signal at that address. Publish it somewhere new with no redirect and the accumulated signal is discarded. This is the single most common and most expensive migration mistake, and it is entirely preventable.
The publication dates
Original dates establish how long the firm has been writing about a subject. Exports frequently reset every article to the migration date, which makes a decade of work look like it was published in one afternoon. Capture the real dates before the export, not after.
The metadata
Titles and meta descriptions were often written and refined over years. They rarely survive an automated export, and rewriting 30 of them under launch pressure produces worse ones than the originals.
The ability to publish
Advisors leaving a platform often assume a custom site means emailing a developer for every update. That trade is not necessary, and for a firm whose content goes through review before it is posted, it is the wrong trade. See the managed publishing portal.
Before You Give Notice
4 questions to put to your current vendor in writing.
Advisors most often ask this when leaving a subscription platform such as AdvisorPages Studio, AltaStreet, FMG, Snappy Kraken, Twenty Over Ten, or WealthReach. This guide does not rank those vendors or describe their offerings, because each controls its own contract, export tools, and retention policy, and those change without notice. Ownership and export rights vary by vendor and by agreement, and the only reliable answer is the one in your own contract. Ask these in email so the answers exist in writing, and ask before you announce that you are leaving.
What do we own?
Ask separately about the written content, the design, and the page files. These are 3 different questions and vendors sometimes answer only the first. A vendor that answers all 3 plainly is not a problem. A vendor that will not is telling you something useful.
What can we export, and in what format?
Request a test export while you are still a customer in good standing. A working export you have actually opened is worth more than a clause promising one. Check whether images come with it, or only the text that referenced them.
How long is our data retained after cancellation?
Some vendors delete account data on a schedule after termination. Find out the window before you start it, because a retention clock you did not know about is how firms lose the archive they assumed was safe.
Who controls the domain and the DNS?
If the vendor registered your domain, confirm who the registrant of record is and how a transfer works. The domain is the one asset that makes every other decision reversible, and it should be registered to the firm.
What a subscription platform is good at
- Getting a firm online quickly with a known, review-familiar structure.
- Bundling hosting, templates, and content libraries into a single monthly line item.
- Removing the need to hire anyone for small text changes.
- Predictable cost while the firm is small and the site is not doing much work.
Why established firms leave anyway
- The site looks like other firms on the same platform, which undercuts a differentiated pitch.
- Stock content does not say what this firm actually does or who it serves.
- The monthly fee never ends and never becomes an owned asset.
- Layout and structure are limited to what the template allows, which is a problem once positioning gets specific.
Worked Example
29 articles, moved with their URLs intact.
Hilpan Moxie Wealth Management is an SEC-registered investment adviser serving technology professionals. The firm had a real body of published writing and needed it to survive the move. The site went from first inquiry to live in 4 days.
| Item | What happened | How to verify it yourself |
|---|---|---|
| Existing articles | 29 migrated. The firm's published writing moved to the new site rather than being rewritten or dropped. | The articles are public on the live site, which is linked from the case study. |
| Article URLs | Preserved. Existing paths were carried across so accumulated search signal stayed attached to each article. | Open any article and compare the path to the one indexed before the move. |
| Publishing after launch | Portal delivered. The firm publishes updates directly instead of sending changes to a developer. | New posts appearing after the launch date are the observable proof. |
| Disclosures | Placed as the reviewer wrote them. Compliance-reviewed language was positioned exactly as supplied by the firm. | The disclosure pages are public on the live client site. |
| Public credit | Listed. The site carries a visible TMN Creative credit and appears on the verification center. | Check tmncreative.com/verify and follow the link to the live site. |
This is 1 checkable engagement, not a promise that every migration takes 4 days. Volume, export quality, and review schedule all change the timeline. Full detail is in the Hilpan Moxie case study.
If A Reviewer Is Involved
Migrations that pass through a firm review process.
Advisors affiliated with a broker-dealer, and RIAs with a formal review step, cannot simply publish a new site on a chosen date. The build has to produce something a reviewer can actually review.
Build where reviewers can see it
A private staging URL with a change log gives the approved audience 1 stable version to review, instead of a moving target. Who may see it, and when, is set by your firm and your counsel.
Produce what the process asks for
On the Parks Wealth Partners build, every page was prepared, exported to PDF, and submitted for the broker-dealer's advertising review, and the site was resubmitted after changes. TMN did not connect the domain until the review clearance was forwarded. That is the broker-dealer's process, not an endorsement of TMN.
Keep the archive question separate
Cancelling a website platform does not end a firm's books and records obligations. Confirm with your CCO or compliance consultant what has to be retained, and where it will live, before the old account closes.
The requirements live in a separate guide
For what the SEC Marketing Rule and FINRA 2210 actually require on an advisor site, use the RIA website compliance guide. For a firm going independent, see the breakaway advisor guide.
Common Questions
What advisors ask before they move.
Do I lose my articles if I leave my advisor website platform?
That depends entirely on your agreement and on what the platform lets you export, so read the contract and test an export before you give notice. Articles you wrote are usually recoverable as text even when the export tool is limited. What is more often lost is the structure around them: the URLs, publication dates, titles, meta descriptions, and images. Capture all of it while the site is still live, because recovering it after the account closes is far harder.
Will my search rankings drop if I change website platforms?
Changing platforms does not have to cost rankings. Losing URLs does. If an article lived at one address for 4 years and the new site puts it somewhere else with no redirect, the accumulated signal for that address is discarded. Preserving the existing paths, or mapping every old path to its new one with a permanent redirect, is what protects the ranking through a migration.
Who owns the website when an advisor uses a subscription platform?
Ownership varies by vendor and by contract, so the only reliable answer comes from your own agreement. Ask 3 specific questions in writing: do we own the written content, do we own the design and page files, and what exactly can we take with us if we leave. A vendor that answers those plainly is not a problem. A vendor that cannot is telling you something useful.
Can we still publish our own articles after moving to a custom site?
Yes, when the build includes a publishing path. Advisors leaving a platform often assume a custom site means emailing a developer for every update. TMN builds a portal so the firm publishes approved articles directly, which matters most for firms whose compliance process reviews content before it goes live.
Does my compliance archive move with the website?
Generally no. Website hosting and the firm's books and records obligations are separate things, and cancelling a website platform does not end a retention duty. Confirm with your CCO or compliance consultant what has to be preserved and where it lives before the old account is closed, because some vendors delete account data after termination.
What does a migration cost?
TMN publishes its prices. Website packages start at $2,250, a full site rebuild starts at $3,750, and a Custom Studio Build starts at $5,000. Advisory firms can add RIA Site Care at $100 per month. Scope and investment are confirmed in writing before work begins. See advisor website cost for the full comparison.
Moving off a platform this year?
Send the current site and roughly how many articles are on it. We will tell you what can be preserved, what has to be rebuilt, and what the scope looks like before you give anyone notice.