Contact person: Migration from Multiple Region English And Arabic Dual Language CakePHP Websites to Single WordPress Site

Phone:Show

Email:Show

Location: Visakhapatnam, Kuwait

Budget: Recommended by industry experts

Time to start: As soon as possible

Project description:
"We are looking for an experienced WordPress developer or agency to migrate our existing platform ArabLocal from CakePHP to WordPress.

Currently, our platform runs on multiple subdomains in English and Arabic (e.g., [login to view URL], [login to view URL], [login to view URL], [login to view URL], [login to view URL]).
We want to consolidate everything into one WordPress site where each region is served via a subfolder structure:

[login to view URL]

[login to view URL]

[login to view URL]

[login to view URL]
(and so on for Qatar, Oman, Bahrain)

The new site must be Bilingual:

English (main language)

Arabic (secondary language, RTL)

Separate URLs for each language using /en/ and /ar/.

Content will be manually translated (not auto) and managed through WPML or an equivalent multilingual framework.

This is a large-scale migration project involving:

500,000+ business listings

25,000+ news articles

We already have a detailed functional specification document that includes:

Migration of existing features from CakePHP to WordPress.

Business directory with premium/free listings, claims, packages, and owner dashboards.

News publishing system with categories, tags, views, and analytics.

Centralized admin dashboard for managing all regions and languages.

SEO requirements: clean URLs, hreflang tags, canonicals, schema markup.

Integration with Cloudways hosting, Cloudflare Pro, RankMath Pro, WP Rocket, and Wordfence.

Additional Requirements:

Migration must be handled one website at a time to ensure smooth rollout.

Must provide a downtime-free migration process with proper staging setup before going live.

Ensure data integrity, including preservation of IDs, URLs, redirects, and user data.

Must conduct thorough cross-browser and mobile responsiveness testing.

Provide at least 3 months of post-launch support for bug fixes and stabilization.

Applicants must propose their own estimated timeline for delivery.

Requirements (Must Have):

Proven experience with large-scale multilingual directory websites (not just blogs or small sites).

Prior work with WPML or similar, managing English + Arabic (RTL) sites.

Experience migrating large databases/content from legacy platforms (preferably CakePHP).

Deep knowledge of GeoDirectory or other directory frameworks in WordPress.

Expertise in custom plugin/theme development (not just using off-the-shelf themes).

Strong understanding of SEO for multilingual, multi-region sites (hreflang, schema, canonicals).

Experience with performance optimization for high-traffic portals.

Solid background in security setups (Cloudflare Pro, Wordfence).

Deliverables:

Full migration of ArabLocal into a single WordPress site with regional subfolders.

Proper bilingual structure: /en/region and /ar/region.

Migration of ~500K listings + ~25K articles into WordPress.

Complete implementation of business directory + news modules.

Centralized dashboard for administrators and business owners.

Testing, QA, and production-ready deployment.

To Apply (Mandatory):

Share at least 2 examples of multilingual directory/news websites you have developed.

Show one project where you migrated large data (100K+ records) into WordPress.

Confirm experience with Arabic (RTL) websites.

Briefly explain how you would handle database migration from CakePHP to WordPress.

Mention if you work as an agency/team or individual, and your estimated timeline.

Shortlisted candidates will receive the full functional document before finalizing scope and budget." (client-provided description)