Do you remember your first day at the college? Going away from home, surrounded by strangers in an entirely new place, everything seemed like an issue, didn’t it?
Migration is scary. Often, it creates new challenges, making it hard to adapt immediately. So there’s no wonder why Magento 1 store owners hesitate to migrate to Magento 2. But does this reason validate store owners not migrating to Magento 2?
According to BuiltWith, 198,127 websites are using Magento 2. People are migrating to Magento 2 because, compared to its previous version, it’s faster and contains many new features. So there’s no reason why you shouldn’t update to Magento 2.
So, how do we solve the issues occurring due to migration? Well, that’s what this article is all about. Here, we’ve identified some of the most common Magento 2 migration issues and provided you with their solutions.
Top Magento 2 Migration Issues And Its Solutions
1. Poor Website Performance & Speed
It’s common that your website might face performance issues or a drop in page load speed while the migration occurs.
Sometimes, it can be caused if the migration is not done properly or your system doesn’t match the requirements of the updated version.
In such cases, here are some solutions to these problems:
- You can configure CDN and improve TTFB to speed up your Magento store.
- To configure CDN, login to your Magento backend and navigate to Stores > Settings > Configuration.
- Under the General settings, click on the Web option.
- Now, open the Base URL tab and enter the CDN URLs on the Base URL for Static View Files and Base URL for User Media Files fields.
You can get the CDN URLs from some of the best CDN providers to boost your website. - Similarly, in the Base URLs (Secure) tab, enter the CDN URLs on the Base URL for Static View Files and Base URL for User Media Files fields.
- Finally, click on the Save Config button up top.
- You can disable JavaScript bundling and augment CSS delivery.
- JavaScript bundling is disabled in Magento 2 by default. To check it, you can navigate to Stores > Settings > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > JavaScript Settings. The fields Merge JavaScript Files and Enable JavaScript Bundling should be set to the value No.
- Navigate to Stores > Setting > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > CSS Settings, for augmenting CSS delivery.
Another important point to consider is that, while the migration happens, your website will be on downtime. This means that the website visitors won’t be able to access your website, disabling them from making any purchases.
Sounds scary, right? But don’t worry, you can certainly take some action against it.
First, you need to figure out the session with the least number of visitors to your website. A downtime at that point would cause less damage to your sales.
While migration, you can put a sign to inform the visitors about the downtime. The migration is pretty short and won’t take more than a few minutes, most often than not.
2. Data Migration Challenges
Data is one of the most important things for any eCommerce website. While transferring all your data from Magento 1 to Magento 2, there’s a chance you might lose some data due to misconfiguration of the setup, which you can avoid by hiring a Magento migration consultant. You may also migrate the data yourself if you carefully follow the below practices:
- Take multiple backups of your data in different locations before you migrate.
- Split and organize your data and migrate from the most important ones to the least.
- Use the official Magento data migration tool to perform the migration without any issues.
3. Theme Compatibility Problems
Due to the different architecture in Magento 2, you might not be able to use the same theme you used in the previous Magento version. You’ll have to customize the theme according to your needs from scratch if your existing theme is not compatible with Magento 2.
To reduce your efforts, you can buy ready-made Magento 2 themes. All it takes is installation and a little customization, and you’ll be on your way with your Magento store.
The Magento 2 themes are very well optimized with better code structure, resulting in improved speed and performance of your Magento store.
If the ideal theme for your Magento store is unavailable, then you can hire Magento 2 developers and build custom themes for your website.
4. Extension Compatibility Problems
Just like themes, you might even face problems with extensions after migrating to Magento 2. The extensions supported in the previous version might not be compatible with Magento 2. In such cases, you’ll be required to find new extensions to replace them.
While this might seem like a frustrating factor, it’s not as bad as it sounds.
Magento 2 has a lot of built-in functionalities compared to its predecessor. So in some cases, you might not be required to use extensions that you used before. Sounds brilliant, right? This means your Magento 2 store might see a jump in performance due to fewer extensions.
Another advantage regarding extensions that Magento 2 has over its predecessor is the ease of installation. You might have faced struggles installing extensions on Magento 1, but it’s not the case here. You’re likely to face fewer compatibility issues while installing extensions in Magento 2, as it supports HTML5, LESS, and CSS3.
5. SEO Challenges
One of the scariest parts of migration is SEO. The changes occurring in SEO due to migration will directly affect the website’s performance, traffic, sales, drop in search results, etc.
While they seem like big issues, they can be fixed using Magento 2’s rich functionalities.
The problems that cause these issues are mostly duplicate content, changes in URLs, incompatible extensions, etc.
You can rewrite URLs using the default Magento settings to avoid losing traffic due to URL changes. Also, configure SEO-friendly indexing for better SERP results and avoid duplicate content using canonical URLs.
Are you confused about where and how to access these settings? Don’t worry. Here’s a complete guide to help you follow the best Magento 2 SEO practices.
One-Stop Solution For All Issues
Migrating from Magento 1 to 2 is a big step, and there could be plenty of unpredicted errors and issues occurring due to it.
While these issues are solvable, not all organizations can put in the time and effort to fix them.
On top of that, executing them can get more complicated than you might think.
This is why we’d suggest you hire Magento experts to solve these problems or hand over the whole migration process for safe and secure execution to avoid Magento 2 migration issues.
They’ll be a one-stop solution for all the problems occurring from different aspects of migration.
This will be the perfect solution if you’re a company that can’t afford to spend time and effort fixing them.
