Did you miss Part One?

The Overview & Background on Switching from Blogger to Wordpress

Okay, now that we have the basics down on what web hosting is and how a website works with BlueHost (a hosting provider) and Wordpress (a blogging platform, much like a software), here are the nitty gritty details.

I will not be providing a very detailed tutorial step by step on how to move it for every step of the way, and for every case.

It’s too exhaustive and I don’t know how to do it from Blogger Blogspot > Free Wordpress.

I think if you read this, you’re going to get a good overview on how to do it on your own.

What are the basic steps to moving from Blogger to Wordpress?

Depending on if you are just sticking to free services, or using custom domain names and hosting, or a mix of any of the above, the steps vary.

But basically it goes like this in every single case:

1. Back up your work on Blogger. Templates, the blog, everything.
2. Inform your readers you are going to switch. Or just do it on a weekend on a whim.
3. Switch Blogger back to a “Blogspot.com” hosted domain
4. Go into your newly created Wordpress and Import the blog with a button

Now for the details.

There are extra steps in between if you are using a custom domain name or not.

If you are going from the Free Blogger Blogspot name to a Free Wordpress blog

• You will need to set up a Wordpress account before you import your blog
• I heard it only takes 5 minutes
• I have never done this before
• You will not need a huge amount of technical know-how such as using FTPs, etc

Here is an absolutely fantastic resource from BlogHerald on how to move from Free Blogger Blogspot to a Free Wordpress blog.

It isn’t tricky, it’s pretty straightforward, and it’s only the RSS feeds & working out technical bugs that might catch you once the blog moves platforms.

Here’s a quick look at the Import functionality in Wordpress that is really cool:

Make sure you log into Blogger Dashboard/Blogspot before you begin.

Under Tools > Import

And you just have to go through some “I approve of Wordpress scraping the blog posts off Blogger” approval page.

Then you just click on The Magic Button and import.

Warning: it does choke once in a while. You have to keep an eye on it. You can’t just leave it and walk away.

Going from a Free Blogger Hosted + Custom Domain Name to a Custom Domain + Custom Hosted Wordpress Platform

(A.K.A. What FB did)

As I explained above, the basic idea is that this is your own personal website now.

No need to go through anyone or to log into Wordpress or Blogger.

You are just using Wordpress installed on your own website, to make it easier to blog.

For example, after you move, when you log into Wordpress to create a new post, you usually go to:

Wordpress.org > Login > Write Post > Posts on YourName.Wordpress.com

The difference in having a custom domain name and hosted domain is that you are going to log in differently.

You will log into your OWN website administration panel powered by Wordpress to create posts and handle plugins and handle things from there.

FabulouslyBroke.com/wp-admin > Login > Write Post > Posts on FabulouslyBroke.com

See the difference?

You won’t have an actual Wordpress account.

You have your own personal website, and you are just using Wordpress as your blog publishing platform. Everything you publish, create, store, write, or do, will be stored under YOUR personal domain name and hosting powered by BlueHost.com in my case.

• You WILL need a basic technical working knowledge of what a website is.
• You will need an FTP program like FileZilla. Read on how to use it here.
• This is generally easy, but it’s the aftermath that is tricky, like RSS Feeds.
• You will need to buy a hosting package. I used BlueHost.com at $6.95/month.
• You can keep your Custom Domain Name & move it over but it’s a pain in the ass.

If you read these resources, it gives you a good how-to tutorial on switching from Blogger, step by step.

I highly recommend reading those pages before proceeding if you are really green at websites & FTP’ing in general.

Before Installing Wordpress: You need a Host & an FTP program

What I had major problems with (that will happen with almost all the cases)

Problem #1: RSS Feed Settings

1. Had to Adjust Blogger Dashboard Settings

I was under Feedburner already and I kept the Feedburner URL to lose as little readers as possible.

In my Blogger Dashboard > Settings > Site Feed >Post Feed Redirect URL

I had to change the RSS Feed to my Wordpress feed so everything is now redirected to my new feed in Wordpress.

http://www.fabulouslybroke.com/feed

Don’t worry about losing anything or screwing up Feedburner by doing this. This was what fixed my problem and was quite necessary.

You won’t lose any feeds, or posts because you’ve already imported your Blogger posts into Wordpress and Feedburner just takes whatever feed you want to burn, and directs people there.

2. Had to adjust Feedburner Settings

Click on your Feed > Edit Feed Settings >Original Feed

Change only the Original Feed to Wordpress feed so that it grabs the posts from Wordpress now.

http://www.fabulouslybroke.com/feed/

You must keep the second  Feedburner Address the same, or else you will lose a lot of subscribers in a very short amount of time.

Don’t forget to save.

3. Helpful Wordpress Feedburner Plugins

FD Feedburner Plugin for Wordpress: Redirects the main feed and optionally the comments feed to Feedburner.com. It does this seamlessly without the need to modify templates, setup new hidden feeds, modify .htaccess files, or asking users to migrate to a new feed. All existing feeds simply become Feedburner feeds seamlessly and transparently for all users. Just tell the plugin what your Feedburner feed URL is and you’re done.

FB Note: Installing Plugins in Wordpress is easy. Just get the WinRAR Zip file, and upload it under Plugins > Add New

Problem #2: Keeping Google Juice Juicy

This is so that any time anyone clicks on any link in my old Blogger page

http://www.fabulouslybroke.com/postdate/postname it will redirect them to the CORRECT, corresponding Wordpress page.

And even if they go into my Blogspot page right now that I am leaving up for image archival purposes, they will click on a link and be redirected to the correct Wordpress page.

1. Changed my Wordpress settings for posts

Under the Wordpress CPanel/Dashboard Settings > Permalinks

Change it from Default (which is just ?p=number) to something similar to what Blogger used to name your files, which is the “Day and name” setting.

2. Installed the following Wordpress Plugins to help the situation along

I have more than I need. I know. I was playing around with a LOT of plugins.

But I don’t know which one actually works, and which one doesn’t do anything, so I just left them all as is.

1. Blogger Redirector: accepts the permalinks, post, feeds requests forwarded from Blogger to appropriate page on WordPress. Useful for migrating the traffic from an existing Blogspot site.

2. Blogger To Wordpress: helps you to redirect from your blogspot post to the corresponding wordpress post(Imported from blogger).

3. Maintain Blogger Permalinks: WordPress’s excellent import script for Blogger doesn’t use the original post slug—necessary for maintaining the permalinks of imported posts.

FB Note: Basically, Blogger has shorter post names for each post, and Wordpress puts the ENTIRE title of the post in the actual post name.

Blogger:

http://www.fabulouslybroke.com/2009/01/this-is-how-i-moved-to

Wordpress:

http://www.fabulouslybroke.com/2009/01/this-is-how-i-moved-to-Wordpress-away-from-Blogger

Problem #3 Importing Blog Posts & Comments

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DO THE FOLLOWING:

Import an entire blog perfectly, including comments.

Frown at the lack of Scheduled Posts because you’re too lazy to move them over by hand.

Decide you want to try and get your Scheduled posts and click on the “Redo Installation Refresh” button at the bottom of the Wordpress importing page.

End up clearing your Blogger information, but instead of Wordpress recognizing posts that have already been imported, it RE-IMPORTS and re-publishes secondary versions of all the posts you already imported.

I had to go through, delete the entire installation and start from scratch.

And the second time around, I lost 5000+ comments and probably a couple of posts.

Ahem. Moving on.

Nothing I can do about this. It was just bad feed scraping from Blogger, and kind of unreliable.

I got all of my published posts, some of my drafts, and NONE of my scheduled posts.

I also lost about 5000+ comments the second time around. Sorry.

But I’m keeping all the comments and info archived in Blogspot for the remaining contest entries so that I don’t lose people’s entries.

All I did was just go back to Blogger Dashboard, and set all my scheduled posts to “Save as Draft” so that they stopped posting on the Blogspot page.

Then I just slowly and painfully moved each one over by copying and pasting the HTML from Blogger into a New Post in Wordpress.

Problem #: Adjusting code on the pages

I played around with the templates, found one I liked (Go Magatheme!) and I had to do a little code tweaking.

In the end, not so bad.

I learned a little PHP coding, a little CSS and I think the site looks simple and elegant.

A big improvement from before.

I also want to note that you should really take the time to go through the plugins and find what works for you and what doesn’t.

I’ll post a list on my favourite Plugins later after I go through the blog and add in absolutely everything I need.

Some Awesome Resources

Mrs. Micah: She moves Blogger blogs to Wordpress for a fee. Please hire her if you are worried!

BlogHerald: Moving from Blogger to Wordpress – the best resource for how to do it

Wordpress Codex: Everything you ever wanted to know about Wordpress & Installation

And of course, me on Twitter! But please don’t bombard me. My brain hurts right now.

Related Posts:

• List of Wordpress Plugins
• Switching from Blogger to Wordpress Part 1
• Switching from Blogger to a Custom Domain
• Google Reader SNAFU: Cannot get a feed from my URL
• Wordpress Under the Hood

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