WFRTDS, redesigned and moved over.
The World Federation of Right to Die Societies brings together right-to-die organisations from around the world. Its website holds a map of the law in 249 countries and territories, country profiles, a library, news, events, donations and a subscriber magazine. This is how it was redesigned and switched over with its donations, subscribers and addresses intact.
- Live since 3 November 2026
- 367 addresses checked
- Donations and subscribers carried over
- Pages served from Cloudflare’s cache
The site before.
The old site ran on GeneratePress with GenerateBlocks page-builder layouts, and a set of plugins that had grown over the years. An audit of the live site on 5 October 2026 found:
- Two form plugins installed side by side, and the custom post types for books, films and podcasts held in a code-snippets plugin.
- No meta descriptions or share previews on any page, and three main headings on the homepage where search engines expect one.
- Leftover shop pages (Cart, Checkout, My Account) open to search engines, one of them showing a raw shortcode.
- Placeholder text from a template still on the FAQs page.
- Pages that Cloudflare did not cache, so every visit depended on a caching plugin.
The donations (GiveWP), the subscriber magazine (Memberful), event tickets and the newsletter all had to keep working through the change, with their records intact.
What we built.
Templates instead of page-builder blocks
About 50 pages, 20 of them country profiles, now run on templates with fields that match each part of the page. Staff change the text and lists; the layout stays as designed.
One record per country
The 249 country and territory records feed the world map, the country list, the homepage board and the facts at the top of each profile, so a change in the law is made once.
Country profiles on one template
Every profile uses the same layout, with maps of the states, provinces or nations for Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, and a tool that moves an old profile across word for word.
A library people can search
The Knowledge Centre and Media Centre list every publication, book, film and podcast, filtered by type and region, with a search box.
Donations and subscriptions kept
GiveWP donations, the Memberful subscriber area and the magazine reader moved across with their settings, licences and records.
The copy fact-checked
The legal and medical statements on the country profiles, FAQs and giving pages were checked against government, parliament and regulator sources. The check raised 26 points, each with a proposed correction and its source.
The switch, rehearsed first.
The new site was built on a staging copy while the old one stayed live. A script copied across what the federation added on the old site in the meantime. Its rehearsal on 14 October brought over 45 users, 43 subscriber links, 4 news posts, a book and 14 donations, and a second run found nothing more.
On 15 October the whole switch ran on a full copy of the live site. The scripted steps took under three minutes, and the rehearsal found two problems that were fixed before the real run: the caching plugin’s settings were not written when it was switched on from the command line, and the newsletter sign-up broke when its script was delayed.
Before the switch, every address the old site answered on was listed: 367 paths from its sitemap, menus, posts, library items, events and the retired shop pages. Settings, donations, subscribers and ticket orders were recorded too, so they could be compared afterwards. A rollback script could put the old site back by switching the database and folders, with nothing deleted.
The numbers, before and after.
Before: the audit of the live site on 5 October 2026 and the address check on 2 November. After: the same checks on the live site on 4 November 2026.
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Addresses that worked on the old site | 349 of 367 | 346 still work, 12 of them through a redirect |
| Retired shop and account pages | Empty pages | Redirected to Donate, Subscriber Area and Awards |
| Served from Cloudflare’s cache | No | Yes |
| Time to first byte, homepage | 0.19 s | 0.10 s |
| Stylesheets on the homepage | 16 | 9 |
| Main headings on the homepage | 3 | 1 |
Time to first byte is the median of three readings. Of the three old addresses that no longer answer, two were removed on purpose (a duplicate of the country template and an old maintenance page) and the third is the WordPress login page. The 18 that did not answer before are pages of the new site, test posts kept unpublished and a made-up address used to check the error page.
Questions about moving a site
Ask us something else →Will we lose donations or members when the site moves?
Not if the records are copied across and checked, which is how WFRTDS was switched. Donations, subscriber links and ticket orders were counted before the switch so they could be checked afterwards, and anything added on the old site while the new one was built was copied over by script.
Will old links and Google results still work?
Every address the old site answered on was listed and requested again after the switch. The retired shop and account pages redirect to Donate, the Subscriber Area and Awards.
Can our staff still edit the pages?
Yes. Each page has fields in WordPress that match its sections, so staff change text, lists and images without touching the layout. See charity websites for how Braw works with charities.
Moving a site with a lot on it?
Send us the address. We will look at what it runs on and tell you what a redesign or move would take.
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