simple hit counter

How to move from Blogger to Wordpress, part 2

Part 1 is here.

If you followed the instructions in part one, you now have a new blog at Wordpress.com. You have explored the options a bit, tampered with the template theme, and begun to consider whether you’ll be staying at Wordpress.com or moving to your own domain.

Either way, you might want to bring over your old Blogger posts. There are a number of reasons for doing so, and an equal number of reasons not to import your old Blogger posts.

Pros

  • You will have your complete archives on site, making for an easy browsing experience.
  • All of your posts will look the same since they will appear inside the same Wordpress theme (template in Blogger is now theme in Wordpress. Get used to it.)
  • If you want to bring together multiple bloggers, Wordpress makes it a cinch to merge all of their old posts together in a single blog while still maintaining separate author info.

Cons

  • Your internal links (each time you linked to one of your own posts) will still point back to your old blog. You can edit these manually, but it’s tedious - especially if you have a hefty blog with lots of internal links.
  • ***You will have duplicate content on the web: each of your older posts will appear both at your old blog and at your new blog. This can hurt search engine rank.
  • Some content might not transfer well. Our videos didn’t survive the move, so we had to open and edit each of those posts on Wordpress and reinsert the code for the video.

***Please don’t ever completely delete your old blog. Urls formerly used as blogs are frequently snapped up by p*rn sites who catch unsupsecting visitors, surfing in on old links from your friends and readers. If you really don’t want duplicate content on the web, you can delete your old posts, leaving just one post to point readers to your new location. Keep in mind that anyone following an old link to a particular post of yours will wind up lost.


 Import your Blogger posts

OK, importing your posts to Wordpress is easy. Due to a glitch in Wordpress, the Import From Blogger function only works if you are on Wordpress.com, so you’ll need to do this even if you plan to eventually move to your own domain. (Does anyone know if this has been corrected in the newest WP version?)

This might be the final resting place for you old Blogger posts or it might be a step in their journey to your own domain, but either way you need to do this:

  1. Log into Blogger, though you won’t actually be doing anything there. You can just log in as though you were going to post something on your old blog, then close that window without logging out.
  2. Log into your Wordpress blog.
  3. Click on Manage, then Import.
  4. Choose Blogger from the list. On the next screen, click the Authorize button to allow Wordpress to access your Blogger files.
  5. You may be asked to log into Google again. Use your Blogger username and password. You will be taken to a Google Access Request page. Click Grant access.
  6. After a brief delay, you should find yourself back inside your Wordpress dashboard, looking at a list of all the blogs associated with your Google username (am I the only one looking at a list of 9 BLOGS???).
  7. Just find the blog you want to import and hit the “magic button” on the right. Wordpress will automatically copy over all of your posts and comments (yes, comments!) before your very eyes.
  8. When it’s done, you’ll have the option to assign a new author to all of the posts - either yourself, or let Wordpress create a new user for your blog.

You’re done. Really, it was easy. I only made it look hard by stretching it into 8 steps. If you peeked at the options while I was busy typing, you probably already did it all yourself.

Any questions?

If you're new here, please take a moment to introduce yourself! If you enjoyed this post, feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

You loved it, right? Here's more like it:

  1. How to move from Blogger to Wordpress, part 1
  2. Blog questions and answers
  3. Wordpress 2.7
  4. Method: Making the most of my online time
  5. Updating links


Did you enjoy this post? Subscribe so you'll never miss a new post!

6 Responses to “How to move from Blogger to Wordpress, part 2”

  1. [...] Part 2 (Importing your Blogger posts) is here.  [...]

  2. Thanks for taking the time to post about this.

    You’re getting a little affliate bonus from Whip An Orbit, because I bought some space and mentioned that I found out about them from you. Go buy a pizza or something, eh? Or, pickles and ice cream.

    Anyway, I used WAO to get a Wordpress blog, just like you are doing. I changed the template and etc… and for some reason, when I choose “View Your Site”all that shows up is a cartoon with “under construction”! Arg! See for yourself: newyorktraveler.net. Got any suggestions?

    Don’t worry, I won’t use you as tech support, so if you have no answers or no time, that’s OK, I understand! I am enjoying your tutorials.

  3. Mrs. Mecomber,
    I emailed you about this. Thanks for the referral with Whip An Orbit! Enjoy Wordpress…I sure do!

  4. Hi Kim,
    I set up my first blog following your instructions in Part 1. Your instructions were so helpful, since I’m really computer ignorant! Would you be able to tell me how to change the outside borders to a different color or image. I’ve tried reading about it, but it’s all foreign to me! If it’s too involved, could you just point me to a good resource to use for help? Thanks so much !

    Nancy

  5. Well, I got it going! Thanks for your help. Once I leave finally Blogger I’ll import everything. At least I have the SmartFTP software down! The reason why I was still seeing “Under Construction” was because a little file had to be deleted (index.html). Wordpress has an excellent forum and knowledge base.

    As an aside, to Nancy.. check out this page at Wordpress for tutorials about customizing your theme. http://codex.wordpress.org/Blog_Design_and_Layout

  6. I just made the switch from Blogger to my own domain (but I now use WordPress). They’re very different–I hope I can quickly get used to WordPress!

    If someone who makes the move doesn’t want to delete all of the posts at Blogger, she could try opening each one and saving as “draft.”

    It takes the entry off the site, but by saving it as a draft, you have an additional backup in case something weird happens at your main site.

Leave a Reply