For merchants with custom templates, migrating to the new base templates (Editor 3.0) is not recommended because using the Design Wizard will install an entirely new set of base templates and ALL of your custom templates will be deleted. Custom templates are not migrated when you use the Design Wizard. There are many reasons why custom templates are not migrated including:

• The new base templates, while having many variables in common with the version 2 templates, use a different set of variables.
• The RTML operators which make up templates in both sets function differently. The version 3 codebase of operators (used in the new templates) includes new operators and more importantly changes the output of existing operators; all operators have closing tags to comply with the XHTML doctype used in the new templates.

For these reasons, Yahoo! feels it is important to make migration a merchant-controlled event at this time so you can choose the date and time when you wish to move to the new templates.

For merchants with custom templates, your templates likely do many of the things that are benefits of the new templates such as search engine optimization, support for CSS, standards-compliant coding. Your custom template may also do much more than the new templates such as customized navigation links, custom page layouts, pagination, or other advanced features.

As always, if you choose to migrate to the new templates, you can create customized templates that use the new templates as a base, or you can create entirely new templates from scratch. If you contracted with a developer to customize your current templates, we encourage you to contact them to inquire whether or not you should migrate to the new templates.

Note: If you choose to migrate to the new templates, please consult the help outlining the steps to take prior to starting the migration process.