Migrating from Blogger to WordPress in 7 Steps While Keeping Subscribers and Search Results (UPDATED)

It is easy to move the content of a Blogger blog into WordPress. But that is just the first part of moving your blog. You should really want to move all the benefits of your Blogspot blog to your new WordPress blog. This is particularly true for many photographers who have Bludomain or similar Flash websites and have been using a Blogger blog to gain better search marketing and reach more potential clients.

If you have been blogging for anytime on Blogspot you probably have many of its articles in Google’s index, readers who bookmarked your blog or articles in your blog, RSS feed subscribers who follow your blog and some level of Google Page Rank greater than 0. All of these are important benefits that are related to your blog’s marketing value and you don’t want to leave them behind in your old blog, and then start over with your new blog. It is best to move the benefits that you have earned to your new blog with your content and continue building on what you have done. So how-to do it?

The basic assumptions: 1) Your Blogger Blogspot blog is using a standard domain like yourblog.blogspot.com. 2) You promise to never delete your Blogspot blog.

Now here are the steps:

Beginning with the assumption that you have self hosted WordPress installed on your domain begin by importing the content from Blogger.

Step 0) BACKUP your Blogspot blog and template. To back up your Blogspot blog use the Export tool in the Admin panel it is in Settings > Basic > Export blog. Save the file to your computer. Template back up is done from, Layout > Edit HTML > Download Full Template. Save the file to your computer. Now if an error happens you can restore your old blog.

Step 1) Create the permalink structure that you need in your WordPress blog. To do this login into your new WordPress site’s admin panel and in the left side menu go to Settings > Permalinks. The screen looks like this –

You will need to use the “Month and name” option. It is most similar to the Blogger structure.

Step 2) Now let’s import your Blogger content. To do this login into your new WordPress site’s admin panel and in the left side menu go to Tools > Import. You will see a screen that looks like this –

Click on the Blogger option and follow the steps. Authorize WordPress to use your Google account and WordPress will display a list of blogs associated with Blogger account. Select the blog that you like to import in Blogger and click Import. Your posts, comments, categories and users will be imported into WordPress in moments.

(Sometimes, particularly for large Blogger blog with lot of content this process may be balky. If it is for you, the workaround is to go to WordPress.com and create a blog and import your Blogger blog into that and then import that WordPress.com version of your Blogger content into your self hosted WordPress. I don’t know why this works, but it does. You will also want to have the WordPress.com account to activate the spam blocker, Akismet, for your new self hosted WordPress blog, so don’t be concerned about starting a new account)

Now starts the details of moving all the related value of your Blogger blog to your new self hosted WordPress blog.

Step 3) Keep your RSS subscribers. If your Blogger blog is not using Feedburner, set it up now. This will make keeping your subscribers a simple matter of managing your blog’s Feedburner account. To burn a Feedburner feed got your Blogger blog go to http://feedburner.google.com and proceed through their steps. Once you have assigned your Blogger blog’s feed to Feedburner, or if you already are using Feedburner, just transfer your feed. Go into the feed and click on “Edit Feed Details.” Change your feed from your Blogspot feed URL to http://yournewblogdomain.com/feed/. At the same time you want to setup WordPress to use that Feedburner feed. To do this install a Feedburner plugin in your self hosted WordPress. In the Admin panel on the left side click Plugins > Add New. Then in the search box enter Feedburner and you will be presented with a screen that looks like this –

Click Install on the right side (highlighted) of the “FD Feedburner Plugin” after it is installed. Alternately you can use the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin provided by Google (Feedburner parent) it can be downloaded here and has some very good instructions if you are new to Feedburner. Still in your WordPress, go to the plugin’s configuration screen and enter your Feedburner feed.

Step 4) Now we need to make sure that when someone clicks on a search result that lists your old blog that they end up at the right place in your new blog (no 404’s). Very important. Sounds like it could be complicated and it is a little.

UPDATE December 24, 2009 – I have changed how I do it to a method that seems to be a little more consistant. =Relatedly I no longer use Amit Agarwal’s process. Instead I use the plugin and code snippets provided by justinsomnia. Much of the Steps 4-6 are edited from his blog, please visit his blog for more understanding of the plugin if needed.

Lets get started. Download and install justinsomnia’s wp-maintain-blogger-permalinks-1.1 WordPress plugin and install it on your WordPress blog. Activate it and then go to Tools > Maintain Blogger Permalinks, and click the button that says “Maintain Blogger Permalink”. Let it operate and build the list.

Step 5) Next we have to mdify the .htaccess file on your website hosting server (this will be in the base WP folder) to have the Blogger URLs which always end in “.html” are probely redirected to your imprted Blogger post now in WordPress but which no longer ends in “.html” To do this open the .htaccess file and place the following code snippet ABOVE the block of code that starts with “# BEGIN WordPress”

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{1,2})/([^/]+)\.html$ $1/$2/$3/ [QSA,R=301,L]

Save the .htaccess file and upload if required.

Step 6) Install a Javascript redirect in your Blogspot blog. We do this to make sure that when someone is directed to your old blog (say for instance from another site or even a search engine) that they will be presented automatically to the correct post in your new blog. To set the JavaScript redirect, just copy the following code snippet and paste it in place of the code between your and tags in your Blogger template (under Layout > Edit HTML). Then edit the two lines that say old_domain and new_domain, replacing myoldblog.blogspot.com with your current blogspot blog name name and mynewblog.com with your new blog’s domain name. Save the template.

<script type='text/javascript'>
// edit the text in between the quotes in the following two lines:
var old_domain = "myoldblog.blogspot.com";
var new_domain = "mynewblog.com";
 
// do not modify this line:
window.location = location.href.replace(old_domain, new_domain);
</script>

Step 7) Finally, tell the search engines to no longer index your old Blofspot blog. This will over time reduce the listings of your old blog. Go to the admin panel of your Blogspot blog, Settings > Basic and for “Add your blog to our listings?” choose “No” and for “Let search engines find your blog?” also choose “No”. Click “Save Settings”. (Note: Leave your blog “Public”, otherwise the redirect script will not work)

After you have done the all steps outlined by above, your new WordPress will appear seamlessly to your regular and new visitors who had become accustomed to your content in your old Blogger blog. As well as people visitors who click through from links on other sites or search engines. So you will not give up ground you have already earned through your blogging and can begin using the advantages of WordPress to further enhance your site’s style, marketing, social networking and SEO.

As usual, if you have any questions or want help just send me an email.