Yesterday I managed to successfully transfer a Google Blogger generated blog over to a WordPress platform. The blog (actually 3 blogs) are hosted on my own domain (like this) and not on Blogspot / WordPress.com. But you can transfer from Blogger blogspot to WordPress.com if you desire too.
With WordPress it was actually very easy to do a transfer of all blog posts, comments and labels over to WordPress, as there is a built in import script that allows imports from several blog platforms as well as RSS feeds, Technorati tags and other social bookmarking sites.
The only problem that I had was that I wanted to keep my Blogger generated URLs in tact, so that all links and search engine listings would continue to work OK. This was actually very easily done, with a small piece of code to modify the import file.
So, how is it done?
Firstly, I downloaded my entire Blogger blog using FTP to my pc, so that if anything went wrong I had a back up at hand.
I then downloaded the latest version of WordPress (2.5.1) and uploaded it into my blog directory. I set up a new database in phpmyadmin, and then installed WordPress.
Once installed, I then went to my Blogger Dashboard, and in settings > publishing set my Blogger blog to be published on Blogspot.
Next I modified the code in the wordpress/wp-admin/import/blogger.php file with this:
preg_match(“/([^\/]+)\.html$/”, $entry->old_permalink ,$matches);
$wpdb->query(“UPDATE $wpdb->posts SET post_name = ‘” . $matches[1] . “‘ WHERE ID = ‘$post_id'”);
so that the whole bit of code on the page looks like this:
$post_id = wp_insert_post($post);
preg_match(“/([^\/]+)\.html$/”, $entry->old_permalink ,$matches);
$wpdb->query(“UPDATE $wpdb->posts SET post_name = ‘” . $matches[1] . “‘ WHERE ID = ‘$post_id'”);
if ( is_wp_error( $post_id ) )
return $post_id;
placing the above code immediately after the call to wp_insert_post. This file was then uploaded. (The code was obtained from my.opera.com. I did not create it myself! The code was written for an earlier WordPress release, but it seems to work well still in version 2.5.1.
Next, in the WordPress control panel, I selected import, allowed WordPress to access my Google Blogger account, and then on the list of blogs, the Blogspot hosted blog was available for importing. Click import, then that is it. Once all were imported, I did some spot checks, and the blogs mostly had the same URL as previously. Where they were different I simply changed the page URL in WordPress for each article (no rewrites or redirects were required).
I also imported two other blogs, so amalgamated three blogs into one. All the blogs are hosted on my health and fitness website, one being about sports, another on mental health, and the main one general health and fitness news. I decided to amalgamate these three blogs into one to mostly make them more manageable, and also because the mental health and sports blogs were rarely updated and were not ranking well in the SE’s.
Once all were imported, I changed the Blogger publishing option back to FTP, to avoid my blogs being shown under a blogspot domain and risking possible duplicate content penalties. It is easy to forget to do this. There is also no need to delete your Blogger blogs from Blogger, as there is no harm in leaving them there. Consider it a back up in case of server meltdown, MySQL errors, hackng etc. etc. In fact, the first step of downloading the entire Blogger blog is not really required, I just like to be safe.
Once the blog was running, I removed the Blogger date dirtectories (i.e. 2007, 2008) but left the archives and labels, as these are still listing in some search engines, and may as well stay as they are. I attempted an archive and label rewrite, but it failed. It is not as important as the actual blog URL, so I’ll leave it.
I probably spent most of my day yesterday actually choosing and modifying a template for the blog. I am now looking at widgets and plugins to install to improve my blogs performance. Oh, I also extended the ping list, so that hopefully once I start posting new articles, the blog will be more visible than it was with Blogger. I already have had one comment to moderate, which went very well.
Oh, regarding comments, I got a WordPress API key and set up the Askimet spam management plugin, which appears to be working nicely.
All in all a painless process to transfer a Blogger blog over to a WordPress platform.
Hi, I am new to blogging and want to make sure I understand. Did you switch to a self-hosted platform or switch to the wordpress platform? I want to transfer from blogger to wordpress as a host. Would you be able to help me learn how to do this?
I switched from FTP Blogger on my own domain to WordPress.org MySQL blog paltform. I believe that you can transfer to WordPress.com too though – it should work the same way – in your WordPress.com chose to import your Blogger blog. It will not affect the Blogger blog in any way, so try it and see!
I am about to do this exact same thing and am wondering if it will matter if i am using a temp install of wordpress. We would like to leave the existing blogger up while we make the change so i am installing in a folder called blog1 and once we are ready i will change settings in WP rename the folder to blog to replace the blogger file. Can you see any issues with this? Also when I am changing the blogger from FTP to blogger hosted is there anything i need to be concerned about in terms of the template? I just don’t want any surprises! Thanks so much!
A temp install will not matter, but you may find a few annoyances, like I did. When you move your blog1 to blog1 and then log in to your account, you may have problems as the blog thinks that it is at blog1 still. Now, I was planning to do the next move differently, in that I plan to amend the url details in the blog settings before moving/copying it to the new location.
Other than that I had no problems on my first migrations. I am hoping to blog my preferred WordPress set up here soon, as there are many Plugins that can help you manage and secure your blog.
Make sure you always update WP and all the plugins, and make regular backups of the database. I know a guy that recently lost his wordress blogs after it has attacked by some hackers. Keep it backed up, and make it secure.
Good luck with the move. That reminds me, I have a good list of ping sites that can be added too.
I have a Blogger FTP blog that I wish to move to WordPress and continue to use the same URLs – same as you have done above. I have pretty much done everything i.e imported the posts, changed the Permalink of the WordPress post to be the same as that of the Blogger post (to ensure that the current Google indexed pages works fine). However, I have one problem
This is the Blogger link
http://discountsvu.com/blog/2009/03/50-off-on-glen-chimney-at-santhosh.html
and this is the WordPress link
http://discountsvu.com/blog/2009/03/50-off-on-glen-chimney-at-santhosh/
The WordPress link doesn’t have the .html at the end and hence fails. Can you advise what I need to do to fix this?
Are you sure that you used the correct code? This part of the code:
preg_match(”/([^\/]+)\.html$/”,will add .html to the end of the URL. Maybe you did not update/upload the new Blogger import file? Delete all WordPress posts and try again, double checking the correct code is in place.
google is going to stop ftp blog spot service from17 march 2010.i am a new blogger .please help me how to export my blogspot blogs to wordpress ? i think it will be very difficult for me to do this.i am anxious about this problem.please help.
I only learned of this today too. The easiest way, as in with least errors, is to import the Blogger export file into a WordPress.com blog, and then export out of WordPress.com into your own hosted WordPress. Doing it direct does not seem to work (or did not last I tried). I set up a WordPress.com blog just for passing Blogger blogs through.
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Hi Mr. Fitness Trainer Courses, this website is about the Internet, not fitness, so I am not sure what sort of advice you may be after. If you are looking for advice on how to promote your website online using ethical methods, then I can help you. If you really want to get fit, then I suggest that you head over to MotleyHealth.com as those guys really know what they are talking about.