Issue Background
During the migration of a legacy website to a new WordPress environment, two major problems appeared after the first import:
Duplicate Featured Images:
Multiple news posts ended up displaying the same featured image, hurting visual consistency.
Broken External Links:
A custom “external link” field triggered errors if the URL wasn’t perfectly formatted with https://, breaking functionality and frustrating users.
Both issues made the new site look unprofessional and broke user trust.
Diagnosis
We ran a detailed audit of the import scripts and custom fields setup:
- The duplicate images came from a scraping tool that didn’t handle similar metadata properly—often assigning one image to multiple posts.
- The broken links traced back to a URL validation rule rejecting plain text or incomplete URLs in the “external link” field.
Resolution Steps
Refining the Import Script
We rebuilt the import process to fetch individual featured images for each post, guaranteeing unique images across the site
Image Optimization
We manually resized and compressed any oversized featured images to reduce load times and improve site performance.
Fixing the External Link Field
By converting the external link field from strict URL validation to plain text, we eliminated errors while keeping flexibility for editors.
Conditional Logic for Display
Now, external links open in new tabs and behave as outbound references. Regular posts stay native to the site for a seamless experience.
Final Outcome
With custom coding, content clean-up, and thoughtful UI handling, we transformed the chaotic import into a polished news archive. Every post now displays properly, links behave reliably, and the whole system works the way it should.
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