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Enterprise CMSCase studiesThe Harvard Gazette

University newsroom

The Harvard Gazette

Harvard's official newsroom moved off Drupal 7 without losing its archive

InfoStride served as Prime Contractor for the digital modernization of Harvard University's Harvard Gazette, the institution's official news and storytelling platform, in collaboration with WordPress VIP. The initiative migrated an aging Drupal 7 architecture to a modern, scalable WordPress VIP environment built for high-traffic publishing, stronger editorial workflows, improved accessibility and long-term maintainability — while preserving the integrity of the Gazette's extensive digital archive.

The Harvard Gazette

Client

Harvard University

Our role

Prime Contractor

Platform

WordPress VIP

Migrated from

Drupal 7

15,000+

Content items migrated

Articles, press releases, multimedia features and opinion pieces.

35%

Faster page loads

Through optimization and modern infrastructure.

30%

Less editorial publishing time

Via modular Gutenberg storytelling blocks.

Key challenges

  • Migrating a large-scale digital publishing platform containing thousands of legacy content items.
  • Preserving metadata, author attribution, taxonomies, publication dates and SEO configurations during migration.
  • Maintaining high performance for a high-traffic editorial platform serving global audiences.
  • Modernizing editorial workflows to support newsroom-style publishing operations.
  • Ensuring compliance with ADA and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards.
  • Rebuilding legacy Drupal layouts into a flexible, maintainable Gutenberg-based publishing framework.
  • Optimizing thousands of media assets — images, videos, podcasts and galleries — for performance and search visibility.

The InfoStride solution

  1. Content and architecture audit
    A detailed audit of the Drupal 7 environment to define migration mapping and content structure strategy before any content moved.
  2. Migrate 15,000+ structured items
    Articles, press releases, multimedia features and opinion pieces moved into WordPress VIP as structured content, not flattened HTML.
  3. Preserve every critical attribute
    Metadata, author details, taxonomies, publication timestamps and SEO configurations carried through the migration intact.
  4. Custom Gutenberg storytelling blocks
    Page layouts rebuilt as flexible editorial blocks so the newsroom composes features without engineering support.
  5. Modern social publishing
    OpenGraph and Twitter Card metadata implemented for reliable, well-formed sharing across channels.
  6. Media and embed optimization
    Thousands of assets and embedded items optimized for performance and search discoverability.
  7. WCAG 2.1 AA engineering
    Semantic markup, keyboard navigation and structured content enforcement built into the templates, alongside a brand-aligned responsive redesign.

Outcomes

What The Harvard Gazette has now

  1. 15,000+ editorial content items successfully migrated into WordPress VIP.
  2. Thousands of media assets transferred and optimized, including videos, podcasts and galleries.
  3. 35% improvement in page load performance through optimization and modern infrastructure.
  4. Editorial publishing time reduced by 30% through modular Gutenberg storytelling blocks.
  5. A fully responsive, brand-aligned news platform delivered for high-traffic publishing.
  6. WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance implemented across templates and content structures.
  7. Improved social media engagement through modern metadata and automated publishing workflows.
  8. Long-term publishing platform stability on WordPress VIP enterprise hosting.

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