I am doing preliminary research before hiring so if anyone could help educate me that knows the answers to this, please chime in. I have a Drupal 6 website. My first question is this. Are there any serious drawbacks to upgrading to Drupal 7 other than the money I have to pay to get it done? Are there benefits?
Now for the most important question: Should I integrate a WordPress Blog into my Drupal site or be using a Drupal Module for my blog? I think its no mystery that Wordpress has Drupal beat by miles for Plug-ins. That said, would a WordPress blog carry over the link juice to the other Drupal Pages, as often a Blog will take on higher Page Rank faster than many of the landing pages so good for SEO. I need the extension simply as http://www.GetATrip.com/blog/. << that is not a working blog of course, made up, of course, though you get the point. Not being a developer myself I don't understand the makings of URL'S like I should. Can a WordPress blog and a Drupal module take on that URL address?
Thank you for any help you can provide.By the way, is there an "average price" to insert a Drupal Blog into a Drupal Website? What is an approximate cost I can look forward to, or not look forward to;)
Best Regards, Roman T.
Comments
I think that integrating a
I think that integrating a Wordpress blog into a Drupal site sounds like a bad idea. Drupal has really good SEO, and, while Wordpress may have some SEO perks that I'm not aware of, I think that simply having a blog on your site (that is updated frequently) adds a huge SEO boost. Clean URL's should further increase SEO vibrance. It's fairly simple to incorporate a blog into Drupal - I would personally opt to use Views. I'm not sure how viable the upgrade path from D6 to D7. I would consider that to be a site rebuild, and port the content across.
Thanks & templates?
I appreciate your feedback Starsinmypockets;why didn't I think up a username like that ;) You may be right about keeping the site "pure" I think that was your point. Do you know if there is a place where one can choose a Drupal Blog Template(s) ? Does it work like that whereas WordPress has templates you choose from?
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I would personally be
I would personally be inclined to use the Views module to build the blog since it gives very fine-grained control over the results, and allows for easy theming. Perhaps others would have feedback regarding their experience with 3rd party blog modules.... It's not so much a matter of "purity", just a matter of practicality... bolting a wordpress blog to a drupal install sounds like a nightmare!
Design
My only dilemma, just a "little" one, is I am not a developer coupled with the fact that all of Drupal is a mind-twist for me. So "just" going into Views and for a little "easy" theming, really does sound good but I need to just find I believe a blog I really like and then tell my developer to duplicate it or something to that effect. I just thought there would be already put together blog designs and premium blog templates like as they have in WordPress. I am so familiar with WordPress and so idiotic with Drupal this is the only reason I was leaning towards WordPress in the first place. But I am sensing you are right that I should have my developer make this a true Drupal site. Thank you very much for taking time out of your day to give me this feedback--
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Drupal Gardens
Have you looked into Drupal Gardens? It's a huge step up from WordPress, without the need to manage a Drupal code base.
Open Enterprise Blog App
Hi Roman,
If you're using D7 you can use the Open Enterprise Blog app to build a blog on your site. Level 10 created the blog app based on the fact that it has to work in a plain drupal site as a module as well as an app. Give it a shot.
http://drupal.org/project/enterprise_blog
DB
Any Blogs to review?
Thanks DB for the heads up! So this is for Drupal 7 too correct, not just Drupal 8? I don't know if this is anything easier at my current level of expertise in developing "anything" in Drupal, but none-the-less sure would like to see some real life websites currently using Drupal Blogs. At the present I have not been given any URLS ever to go to and every attempt I have made to track down Drupal Blogs comes up short.
If anyone has a Drupal Blog I can see, please could you leave the URL here? Sure would appreciate it. Also does anyone know if there are developers that have any such thing as a Drupal Premium Blogs for sale, type thing. I mean all one would have to do for WordPress is type in Premium WordPress and there are page after page of folk selling their blog templates. Is there such a thing with Drupal.
I am a marketing guy not a designer so what I hope to accomplish on most days is simply finding stuff i like and going to a developer and asking them to make something similar. I am pleased to report though that I am making some headway at least understanding the backoffice of my site and using it as a true CMS!
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Any Blogs to review?
duplicate. must have hit the key by accident twice. There is no way to just delete a comment if this happens?
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Upgrading to the Newest Releases of Drupal?
Is it smart to always try and give your Drupal site the upgrade to the newest release? Somehow I thought it would make sense for the simple fact that like most software newer releases are an "improvement" with added features and clumsy stuff taken off. So why when I mentioned to my developer that we should probably upgrade our site from 7 to 8 did he kind of hum and haw? Ask him you say! That would be too easy -- Okay, I will have to give that one a try;)
Does anyone else have or can think of reasons not to upgrade? Is it that beg a hassle? Any drawbacks?
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Stick with what works
Hi Travel,
I have spent a year now trying to get a grip on Drupal 7 - most of the community is still working with drupal 6 and for good reason - most of the modules work and are not in Beta versions.
No doubt that Drupal 7 is way ahead of Drupal 6 but the upgrade process is not at all simple. Drupal 6 modules do not work in Drupal 7 so if you want to use those modules you have to hope that there will be a Drupal 7 release - which doesn't always happen quickly.
Unless this process is different for the upgrade to Drupal 8, I would not touch it at all until it has been operational for at least 12 months - preferably 2 years.
Yes, it makes sense to upgrade within a release (eg from Drupal 7.09 to Drupal 7.12 but NOT to the next release as this means that you have to re-test everything and that converts to time which can only convert to money.
Instead of a Drupal?
Instead of a Drupal blog have you concidered Tumblr or Posterous which can be set up by a non developer. They also have have custom themes to choose from and can have that domain you want like http://www.getatrip.com/blog, though drupal can do that url too.
With the Drupal blog other modules will be needed like views, cck, wysiwyg, and others to get it just right if you plan on adding images so if you do the enviable security updates will come out every so often. Do you have the cash to pay for the updates when that happens whereas Tumblr and Posterous you would not have to worry about paying someone for security updates and making sure all those modules still work with your site.
I ran a Drupal blog for a while and ran into things not working correctly after updates were applied. Even if you tell them about it not working it could be a while before they get it fixed unless you pay them.
Thoughts about Upgrading
Hi,
I realize that your last comment was a month and a half ago, so this reply may no longer be relevant. However, if you still want some URL's of Drupal blogs, look here: http://sitebasin.com/blog/7-great-drupal-blogs and here http://leapon.net/en/blogging-drupal-comparison-wordpress and here http://www.onyxbits.de/content/howto-build-single-user-blog-drupal
Upgrading
To upgrade a Drupal website I suggest using a relatively safe upgrade method. Make a working copy of the website, upgrade the copy, verify that it works, then upgrade the main website. There is very little chance of damaging your website. Here is how it is accomplished.
I'd like to address upgrading from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 (or any Drupal upgrade for that matter.) I'm not a Drupal developer or anything, but I have about a half dozen Drupal websites, most of which I've upgrade from Drupal 6 to 7. I've been using Drupal since Drupal 4, (which was really geeky) Drupal 6 and 7 are IMMENSELY easier to use and to upgrade that Drupal 4 or Drupal 5. I have crashed some of my websites during upgrades. I've had upgrades that have caused errors that drove me crazy.
Consequently, some of my following upgrades I have done be just installing a new Drupal website and transferring content by "copy and paste" partly to get rid of errors from previous upgrades). Other upgrades I have done by the standard upgrade process. http://drupal.org/documentation/upgrade/6/7 Over time, and doing a lot of upgrades, I have developed a plan that works for me, and minimizes any chance of crashing a main website.
Instructions
I say all that to say that nowadays I am very cautious and meticulous about making upgrades, and upgrading is much easier for me that every before. This is basically what I do. Kind of following the instructions found here (including the child pages) http://drupal.org/documentation/upgrade/6/7
(Note: these are not all the instructions (there are things that I left out), but am just covering the highlights. I am just telling you these instructions to give you a general idea of how I upgrade a website) Since I use CPanel, these instructions are mainly for upgrading using CPanel. But the process should be similar with other methods.
Before upgrading, make a list of ll of your modules, then go over to Drupal.org and see if there are upgrades or replacements. If you are using a vital module in Drupal 6, and they don't have one, or don't have one ready, you might want to reconsider upgrading at the present.
Before you start, make backups
Before you do anything, from within CPanel, Do a FULL BACKUP of everything (It is usually backed up to your home directory. (then wait until you get an email notification that the backup is complete.) Next download the backup file to your computer. You won't be able to use this full backup (unless you are very knowledgable, but this file will enable your host to restore everything as it was if someone makes a big mistake during the upgrade.
Then do back up your entire website (database, folders, and files) in case anything goes wrong. (This backup allows you or your webmaster to restgor the website to its original condition if something goes wrong.)
Don't go any further until you have fully completed both of those backups.
If you prepare for disaster, as doing the above, if disaster strikes (someone makes a big booboo), it will be fairly easily fixed.
Log Into the Website
Log Into Cpanel
*Go into CPanel and create a new blank MySQL database, attaching the correct user and enabling all the permissions.
*Copy the contents database of the website-to-be-upgraded into the newly created database.
*Go back into the CPanel file manager and create a new folder of a similar name of the website. For example, if my website has a URL of "MyWebsite.com", the folder for the website would be named something like mywebsite-com. When I create the above new folder I would name it something like, mywebsitecopy.
*Next change the permissions of the sites/settings file from read only 444 to read/write 644 (if you don't set the permissions to the write 644, the settings file won't copy over to the new folder.)
*Then you would copy all the files and folders from the website file MyWebsite-com to the new folder mywebsitecopy.
*Go through the upgrade process, as outlined here (many of my steps are duplicated here): http://drupal.org/node/570162
Conclusion
Now, the main thing to take away from my message here is that you make a copy of your database, make a copy of your website files, connect the database and then upgrade the copy. You shouldn't ever change or touch the main website files (except to copy them) until you are sure that you have a good working copy of your website. So if something goes wrong, or if you crash the website, your main website stays up and running. No Stress. Once you get the copy upgraded and checked out that it is fully working, either upgrade the main website, OR move all the website files into another folder. Then copy the upgraded files into the main website directory. Copy the upgraded database copy back over into the main database (after deleting all the tables).
Go back into the sites/settings file and enter the name of the main database.
Keep the old website files and databases until you have ran the website long enough to make sure everything is working.
With all that said, let me say that after using Drupal 7 for a few months, I love it!
Best Wishes,
Stephen
Security
The main reason for choosing Drupal over WordPress is the security, SEO benefits and management ability.
Even though it’s clear that WordPress has a much larger community around it than Drupal, there are still thousands of developers and over 8,000 modules to choose from. It’s not a small community, it’s just small in comparison.
I get tons and tons of spam from my wordpress sites everyday. I am not sure how this happens but it does. I have set up so many wordpress sites and everyday i get spam junk comments and ping backs.
I am a web designer from
Kentucky. I have used Drupal for many years now.