Case Study: Migrating Thatsagoal.com to Akurai WordPress Theme

Thatsagoal.com is a long-running sports betting website that publishes bookmaker reviews, betting offers, bonus codes, and free bet guides. With a large volume of content and multiple sections to manage, the site needed a move to a new WordPress theme that could make everything easier to maintain while keeping the structure readers were already familiar with. Akurai theme was chosen, a theme designed specifically for sports betting and affiliate websites.

Goals

The goals of the migration were clear:

• Transfer a large archive of reviews, offers, and blog posts without losing data.
• Maintain existing URL structures to avoid SEO disruption.
• Improve how promo codes were displayed by replacing the existing plugin with theme-based functionality.
• Ensure the separate /horse-racing/ section was integrated smoothly, with all its URLs checked after migration.

Preparing the Migration

The project began with a staging setup to allow development and testing before anything went live. One of the first technical steps was to map the custom fields from the previous setup into Akurai’s structure. This ensured that bookmaker reviews and bonus details transferred correctly without the need for manual re-entry.

At the same time, the site’s bonus codes were rethought. Instead of relying on a plugin, Akurai’s existing system was chosen for that. Using custom bonus fields and existing listings provided more flexibility in how offers could be displayed and gave the site a more consistent look and feel.

Key Adjustments During the Process

As with any large site migration, a few details needed hands-on attention. For example:

• /horse-racing/: After migration, all URLs in this section were checked and confirmed to be working properly.
• Visual alignment: Some areas required small CSS adjustments to display logos properly.
• Block editor: During migration, the site switched from the Classic Editor to the default Block Editor. This ensured that all of Akurai’s blocks and features could be used effectively, giving more flexibility in page design and future updates.
• Tips Block: A custom block was added to make betting tips easier to feature across the site. This gave Thatsagoal a dedicated space to highlight expert advice and keep content more engaging.
• Bookmaker Logos: Bookmaker logos were preserved during the migration, so there was no need for manual re-upload or reassignment.
• Affiliate Links: Affiliate links from the old setup were migrated to Nonaki, a free and simple link cloaking plugin. Review pages were updated to use the new links, ensuring everything continued to work seamlessly.

By tackling these issues directly, the migration was able to preserve the site’s existing content while upgrading the presentation.

Outcome

The end result was a successful migration of Thatsagoal.com to the Akurai theme. The bookmaker reviews, offers, free bets, and blog content all carried over smoothly, and the /horse-racing/ section continued to work without disruption.

The site now benefits from:

• Integrated promo codes management.
• Cleaner layouts with flexible new blocks.
• A new Tips Block for showcasing betting advice.
• Improved design consistency across pages.
• Single WordPress dashboard to manage all, including the horse racing section.

If you’d like to see more sites built with Akurai, check out the showcase page.

Client Feedback

“It was great to have work with Levon on this project and he quickly understood exactly what was required for the full migration of thatsagoal.com. Any questions were answered swiftly and changes were implemented exactly how I envisioned. The new theme looks great and it gives me much more flexibility to make changes to the site as and when is required.”
Andy, thatsagoal.com

Planning a migration of your own? Get in touch to discuss your site.