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mohit_arora1
Level 2
March 3, 2026
Question

Content Migration - EDS with Universal Editor

  • March 3, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 53 views

Hi All,

We are currently redesigning and rebuilding our website using AEM Edge Delivery Services (EDS) with Universal Editor. We would like guidance on the recommended approach for migrating existing content to EDS with AEM as content source and specifically

• Recommended strategies for mapping existing page content to EDS blocks

Guidance on handling Content Fragments

• Any official Adobe tools, utilities, or accelerators that support automated content extraction, transformation, and migration to EDS with UE and if we need to write custom scripts and custom code to do the transformation/mapping and migration?

Thanks,

Mohit

    2 replies

    AmitVishwakarma
    Community Advisor
    AmitVishwakarmaCommunity Advisor
    Community Advisor
    March 4, 2026

    Hi ​@mohit_arora1 ,
    there is no “one-click” migration from classic AEM Sites pages to Edge Delivery Services (EDS) + Universal Editor. Treat it as a re‑implementation using blocks, supported by automation (importers/scripts) rather than a pure lift‑and‑shift.

    1. Mapping existing pages to EDS blocks

    • Design a lean block library (hero, teaser grid, card list, form promo, FAQ, etc.) that covers your main page patterns.
    • Group legacy components by function and map each group to a block + variant, instead of 1:1 migrating every component.
    • For existing AEM Sites (especially Core Components), use the AEM Importer to pull HTML from your current site and transform it into the semantic HTML/Markdown structure your blocks expect. You add small transformers to recognize your components and emit the right block markup.

    2. Handling Content Fragments

    • Keep Content Fragments as structured content, not “blocks”.
    • Author layout and page structure with blocks via Universal Editor, and reference Content Fragments from those blocks/components where needed.
    • Deliver CFs via the existing CF Delivery APIs (REST/GraphQL) while EDS handles the page shell and front‑end.

    3. Tools vs. custom scripts

    • Official tooling you should plan to use:
      • EDS + Universal Editor site templates/tutorials to stand up the new project and define blocks.
      • AEM Importer (aem.live) to automate extraction and transformation of existing pages into block‑friendly content.
    • Custom logic is still required: you will almost always write project‑specific transformers or scripts to:
      • Clean up legacy HTML,
      • Map site‑specific components to block variants,
      • Handle special cases (complex layouts, legacy inline styles, etc.).

    In practice, the recommended approach is: define the new block model -> migrate a few representative pages with the importer -> refine mappings -> then scale out bulk migration.

    https://www.aem.live/docs/aem-authoring

    https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-learn/sites/edge-delivery-services/developing/universal-editor/0-overview

    https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/implementing/developing/universal-editor/page-editor-universal-editor

    https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/edge-delivery/overview

     

    Amit Vishwakarma - Adobe Commerce Champion 2025 | 16x Adobe certified | 4x Adobe SME
      M
      mohit_arora1Author
      Level 2
      March 4, 2026

      Hi ​@AmitVishwakarma ,

      Thanks for the response. Just a clarification, our existing website is not on AEM. What we mean by mapping content to content fragments is around importing structured content for example if we have news/article kind of pages and we want to import that content and utilise Content fragments for storing the same in AEM. Can AEM importer help with that?

      Also to confirm my understanding , we need to write custom transformation rules to map existing content to custom authorable properties that we created to support Universal editor authoring ? Do we customise import.js for the same and we do that for all the blocks or across the site?

      Thanks and Regards,

      Mohit Arora

       

       

      AmitVishwakarma
      Community Advisor
      AmitVishwakarmaCommunity Advisor
      Community Advisor
      March 4, 2026

      Hi ​@mohit_arora1 ,
      Thanks for clarifying.

      1. Importer + Content Fragments (non‑AEM source)
      2. Custom transformation rules / import.js scope
        • Your understanding is right: you will define custom transformation rules to map legacy HTML into the authorable schema you designed for Universal Editor (block fields, properties, metadata. https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-learn/sites/document-authoring/how-to/customizing-importer
        • Technically this is done by customizing one import.js per project, and inside that file you:
          • Detect each page “pattern” (article, listing, etc.),
          • Extract the relevant bits of the DOM,
          • Emit the structure your blocks/CFs expect (tables, metadata, JSON, etc.).
        • So you don’t usually create a separate importer per block; you keep one importer script with rules covering all blocks / templates across the site, and branch inside it as needed.

      So: Importer = extraction + normalization, and CF creation + mapping = custom code on top of that. Once you’ve proved the mapping on a few pages, you can run the same pipeline in bulk.

      Amit Vishwakarma - Adobe Commerce Champion 2025 | 16x Adobe certified | 4x Adobe SME
        arunpatidar
        Community Advisor
        arunpatidarCommunity Advisor
        Community Advisor
        March 10, 2026

        Adobe has built AI powered capabilities to do migration from any website to EDS. Please contact adobe to ask for that feature.

        It V +1 of experience catalyst.

        Arun Patidar
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