9 sites
Rebuilt on one WordPress template
~1 month
From crisis to all nine going live
200+ pages
Per site, from Laravel to WordPress
5GB+ per site
Images moved by custom script
About the Client
The client operates nine US residential home-builder brands. All nine websites ran on the same custom Laravel platform, with a shared structure and smaller brand-specific differences. The sites were also part of the lead-generation process. Visitors could request gated guides, floor plans, and portfolio information through forms connected to Constant Contact.
The Challenge
Nine lead-generating websites could disappear in less than a month with no backup. The developer who built and hosted the platform was no longer working with the client and was pursuing legal ownership of the websites and code. The server was also completely under the developer’s control.
The client had:
- No source code
- No server access
- No WordPress admin access
- No Laravel admin access
There was no practical way to create a conventional backup because the client did not control the server. And each site had more than 200 pages and more than 5GB of images. The lead-generation workflows posed another problem. Nobody on the client side could fully explain how the system worked. We had to reverse-engineer those workflows from the live websites before losing them forever.
Our Approach
We treated the live sites as the source of truth and rebuilt the shared platform around one reusable WordPress template.
WordPress template
All nine sites shared the same core structure and functionality, so we did not rebuild them nine separate times. We built one WordPress template, consolidated the shared functionality, and adapted it for each of the nine brands. Each site retained its required brand-specific content and structure while moving off Laravel.
Website images
The sites contained more than 5GB of images each, including portfolio, floor plan, and project imagery. Manually downloading and replacing that volume across nine sites was not practical. We wrote a Python script to pull the images from the live sites, rename them using a consistent convention, and upload them to the correct locations in WordPress.
Lead Generation
Free Guides
The sites offered industry PDF guides through popups and on-page forms. Visitors submitted their details, received the guide by email, and were added to Constant Contact. We rebuilt that workflow so the lead and guide delivery continued to work on WordPress.
Floor Plans and Portfolio
The floor plan system was connected to the portfolio. Visitors could request a floor plan through a form, after which the plan became available on the site for 24 hours rather than being sent directly by email. That relationship was not documented anywhere on the client side. We had to reverse-engineer it from the live sites and rebuild that workflow in WordPress.
The Outcome and Value
All nine websites were moved to WordPress in about a month, giving the client full access to the sites, code, and hosting instead of relying on a platform it no longer controlled. The rebuild preserved Constant Contact, Free Guides, Floor Plans, and Portfolio workflows, so visitors could still request information and become leads. Our team’s rebuild also prevented losing website-generated opportunities and eliminated the cost and disruption of recreating its websites and lead-generation processes from scratch.
Before and After
Requirements
Before
After
Platform
Custom Laravel, disputed
WordPress the client controls
Access
Live sites + domain only
Code, hosting, and admin access
Sites
9 at risk of deletion
9 live
Pages
200+ per site
200+ per site migrated
Images
5GB+ per site on live servers
Migrated by custom script
Lead capture
At risk
Recovered
Guides & plans
Undocumented
Rebuilt in WordPress
Tech and Tools
WordPress
Elementor
Laravel
Python
Services Provided
- Emergency site recovery
- Platform migrations
- Custom migration scripting
- Lead-generation workflow migration
- WordPress design & development
More case studies
Explore related projects.
Is your website stuck on a platform you can't control?
Start with a free migration audit. We’ll assess what you have, what needs to move, and where the risks are before you commit to a full rebuild.
