Is this you?
You’re always on edge. You can’t relax. You can’t sleep. You’re thinking about it constantly. At the neighbor’s BBQ. At your daughter’s recital. Even yoga class provides no respite. It’s not giving you a moment’s peace.
Of course, I’m talking about your website.
Hey, we’ve seen it a thousand times before here at Kanopi. You have a website that was built in the Drupal content management system (CMS), and now it’s making your life a living hell. Content updates — even ones that should be simple and routine — are an excruciating, soul-crushing ordeal.
There’s a name for this condition: Drupal Burn. And if it’s happening to you, it may comfort you to know you’re not alone.
We’ve seen it happen, with Drupal 7 clients and onward. Even clients on modern Drupal, like Drupal 10 or 11, aren’t always immune. In fact, we’ve seen cases so severe in some clients that they’re practically begging us to scrap it all and rebuild in a different CMS — even if they just built a modern Drupal site in recent years.
Degrees of Drupal Burn
At Kanopi, we diagnose Drupal Burn according to 1st, 2nd and 3rd degrees:
1st Degree Drupal Burn
- Updating your site is a constant struggle.
- Edits take way longer than they should.
- Each update to a section of the site requires multiple humans to sort out.
- Your site search constantly brings back incorrect, irrelevant information.
- Your current or previous vendor is holding you hostage; i.e. not providing you with administrative access to the site, the code, and the database.
2nd Degree Drupal Burn
All 1st degree symptoms, plus:
- You don’t like the design.
- The site isn’t converting.
- You need to find workarounds everytime you edit the site.
- You don’t have access to the site, or are unsure where it is hosted, or registered, or if it’s even being maintained.
3rd Degree Drupal Burn
All 1st and 2nd degree symptoms, plus:
- Your site is constantly down due to performance and security issues.
- Your performance scores are so low they are in the sub-basement.
- You can’t edit the site without it crashing.
- You’re in constant triage and reactive mode.
- You’ve been abandoned by your previous vendor.
At this point you hate Drupal with the passion of a thousand suns, and are ready to give up on it altogether. Alas, do not despair, Drupal Burn victims. Despite how things may seem, it is a highly curable condition.
How to cure Drupal Burn
Quite often, the cure for Drupal Burn is much simpler than a complete rebuild. Believe it or not, all it takes is some training, along with reworking parts of your site to address pain points.
In fact, we’ve developed a specific treatment for each stage of Drupal Burn.
Treating 1st Degree Drupal Burn
- Training
Like many things in life, editing-related headaches large and small are often a matter of proper training. We’ll work with you to identify editing issues and provide thorough, efficient, relevant training.
Each training session is recorded and provided to you for future reference. We can also provide written training documentation upon request.
- Full site access
It’s a frustrating feeling when you lack proper access to your site and its various assets, especially since it all belongs to you. We’ll ensure that you can always access your site’s properties, including:
- You administrative account
- Hosting
- Domain registration
- Analytics
- Code
- Database
- Plus all third-party integrations.
Treating 2nd Degree Drupal Burn
These types of Drupal Burn can typically be treated by implementing strategic enhancements with ongoing support hours. This allows us to work with you to target priority issues causing Drupal Burn. Prioritizing these items is a collaborative effort that involves ranking issues according to importance, impact, and effort level. In doing so, we can customize an editing experience that works best for you and your team.
Treating 3rd Degree Drupal Burn
These, of course, are the most severe types of Drupal Burn; however, even these are treatable.
In addition to technical work, we find that our Drupal Burn patients also require emotional support — helping you navigate, sort, and file the negative experience of a content management system that didn’t allow you to manage content.
Along with combining 1st and 2nd degree treatments, treating 3rd degree Drupal Burn also requires:
- Pinpointing troublesome code, and replacing it with modules or efficient, secure code.
- Installing and testing upgrades and updates.
- Locating and resolving content editing issues
- Create an editing flow that works for you and your team.
- Analyzing your hosting environment,
- Making recommendations to improve performance and security.
Just don’t burn your Drupal site
We know Drupal Burn hurts. It’s frustrating. It wastes your time, and it can make you feel like you’ve wasted a lot of money. Hang in there and don’t give up. Reach out for help. We’ve provided numerous clients with a permanent cure for their Drupal burn, including:
- 1st degree case: Eye Recommend
- 2nd degree case: TWIT
- 3rd degree case: UCSF School of Nursing (they had 4 rebuilds in 3 years!)
We’re here for you, too.
After all, your website has klout. It has SEO juice. It was a big investment, and is of course an ongoing investment. And remediating a modern Drupal site (Drupal 8+) is a far lower level of effort and investment than rebuilding your site from scratch.
When properly configured and supported, your modern Drupal site can run cost-effectively and produce results for 10 years or more. We’re here to help you make it happen. Think of Kanopi as the prescription for your Drupal Burn.
