Arc XP implementation checklist for newsrooms

Implementing Arc XP at a media outlet is a project with several fronts at once: technology, content, editorial team, advertising and search rankings. Projects that stumble almost never fail because of Arc itself, but because of decisions made late or tasks nobody was assigned. This checklist organizes the work into phases so nothing is left to chance. If you are still deciding whether it suits you, start with Arc XP vs WordPress for a digital media outlet and what Arc Publishing is.

A successful implementation is decided before writing code: with a clear scope, a well-thought-out content model and an editorial team involved from the start.

Phase 1. Scope and governance

• Project goals: what problem it solves and how success will be measured (publishing speed, traffic, revenue, costs).
• Scope by phases: what ships at launch and what is left for later.
• Owners: a project owner on the outlet's side, plus a technical one and an editorial one.
• Schedule with milestones and a launch date with margin.
• Identified risks: campaigns, elections, high-traffic events that constrain the go-live date.
• Budget covering implementation, licenses, migration and later support.

Phase 2. Inventory and content model

• Inventory of the current site: content types, sections, tags, authors, galleries, videos, embeds and special pages.
• What is migrated and what is dropped: not every archive deserves the trip.
• Content model in Arc: how each type of story is represented in Arc's native format (ANS), with its custom fields.
• Taxonomy: sections, tags and their mapping to the current structure.
• Editorial workflows: who creates, reviews, approves and publishes, and how stories are scheduled.
• Roles and permissions for each newsroom profile.

Phase 3. Archive migration

• Migration strategy: what is brought over, in what order and with what transformation rules (shortcodes, editor blocks, images).
• Trial migration with a sample and editorial review.
• Images and media: moved to Arc's photo and video centers, with their credits and alt text.
• Authors and metadata preserved.
• Validation: counts, random samples and review of the most visited stories.
• Plan for the final update (new content published during the migration).

The full guide is in how to migrate from WordPress to Arc XP without losing SEO.

Phase 4. The site and templates

• Design and components: front page, sections, story, author, search, special pages.
• Built with Arc's tools: PageBuilder and custom components where needed.
• Front page behavior: how editors assemble and update front pages.
• Mobile version and performance (Core Web Vitals).
• Accessibility of templates and components.
• Browser compatibility relevant to your audience.

Phase 5. SEO and redirects

• 301 redirect map for every URL with traffic or links.
• URL structure defined and consistent.
• Tags, metadata and canonicals correct in the templates.
• Structured data for stories, authors and organization.
• Sitemaps (including Google News if it applies) and robots.txt.
• Baseline of rankings and traffic before the change, to compare.
• A test environment blocked from search engines, with that block lifted at launch.

For the detail, review the redirect checklist for migrating your site.

Phase 6. Advertising, subscriptions and analytics

• Advertising: integration with your ad server, defined slots and load testing. See integrating Piano, Cxense and Google Ad Manager in Arc XP.
• Subscriptions and paywall: rules, measurement and user experience.
• Analytics: events, sections and authors measured from day one.
• Cookie consent and privacy.
• Newsletter and social networks: integrations and templates.

Phase 7. Editorial team and training

• Training by profile: reporters, editors, photographers, administrators.
• Quick guides and the outlet's own documentation.
• Practice sessions with real stories in a test environment.
• A support channel during the first weeks.
• A coexistence period if the previous system is kept for a while.

Phase 8. Testing and go-live

• Functional tests: publish, edit, schedule, unpublish, search.
• Load tests for traffic spikes.
• Editorial review of migrated stories and front pages.
• Go-live plan: a low-traffic date and time, owners and internal communication.
• A rollback plan in case something serious fails.
• DNS change and verification of redirects and certificates.
• Submission of sitemaps to search engines.

Phase 9. After launch

• Daily monitoring of 404 errors, indexing, speed and advertising during the first weeks.
• Comparison with the baseline of traffic and rankings.
• A prioritized list of adjustments with the editorial team.
• Support and evolution: who maintains, improves and resolves incidents. A retainer plan provides continuity.

Mistakes we often see

• Deciding the content model without the newsroom.
• Leaving redirects for the end.
• Not testing advertising with real traffic.
• Training the team only on launch day.
• Launching without a rollback plan or a baseline.

How we do it at Codegea

We accompany the implementation and support of Arc XP for media outlets, from the content model to go-live and the follow-up afterward. Learn about our Arc XP implementation and support service or write to us from contact.