BLOGBloke: Moving Blogger Over to Wordpress: The Good, Bad and the Ugly
Debbie Dolphin
· 1 year ago
Backlinks vanished into the Black Hole of Google??? Google Present Ration (PR) falling???
Perhaps, these minor issues will be solved soon by the benefits of using WordPress?
For reasons unknown, my RSS subscriptions have doubled since moving to WordPress which could be a clue as to how insignificant Google's rating or ranking systems may be?
Is it possible to strike out the word NOT in the "7 Reasons Why Blogger Users Should NOT Switch to WordPress?
Other than a few initial bumps like using Firefox NOT Safari, searching for the needle in the Header Code to hide the link in the Header image, and the Permalink issue, I found the WordPress Dashboard very easy to learn and use compared to Blogger.
Happy New Year, Debbie Dolphin
Kathy
· 1 year ago
Hey, Bloke! Looking good! As you know, I've hit some stumbling blocks during my move to WordPress, but it has grown on me and I'm so pleased I moved.
I still have a lot of questions for which I'm not finding answers. And some of them are simple ones. Kinda frustrating. Anyway, glad to see you up and running. I've updated my feed.
Jaffer
· 1 year ago
I too am working on a Wordpress project but I am getting frustrated working with the php tags and tryng to figure out how to get the sidebar show different content for the home page and the archive page !
Do you guys have any resources or websites that you can point me to ?
Lee
· 1 year ago
Since I'm fairly new to blogging, my move to WordPress was probably a lot less painful than your move. I'm learning about different plug-ins and making changes and additions as I go along.
The biggest issue for me was finding a theme that allowed me to make changes to the header image. I wanted to be able to showcase some of my photography in a way that contributed to my blog. The theme I've chose not only does that, but it also allows me to use multiple images which are randomly cycled each time the page is refreshed. I'm thrilled with the results of installing the chosen theme.
Anyway, today I also added a Blokester button to my sidebar with a link back here. So, even though I wasn't one of those with a previous link-back, there's one for you now. :0)
Lee, you can always manually edit the theme files in wp-content/themes.
To change the header image, all you have to do is edit the header.php file !
If you server allows changing file permissions (to 666), you can even edit your theme within the word press environment
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Hi Debbie. Nice Avatar!
The reason you are getting more RSS subscriptions is probably because you moved to Wordpress. When you're on WP you are somehow taken more seriously.
Heh, the “7 Reasons Why Blogger Users Should NOT Switch to Wordpress" is kind of embarrassing but I have no control over that. It's a plugin that automatically inserts it. Then again, maybe it's good to read the flip side of the argument as well.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Thanks for updating the feed Kathy. I would miss you tremendously over here. By the way, have you noticed that you are already number 6 on the all-time Top Commenters list? Congratulations!
We're all learning as we go with Wordpress. But as a community we can grow together and help each other out.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Jaffer, it sounds to me like you will want to edit the "Single Post" file which you should see in your Theme Editor. I also sent you a link to the Wordpress documentation that should help.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Hi Lee. Thanks for the Blokester link and welcome to the community!
Jaffer is right about the header.php file. That is where I modified my header/banner. If you want, let me know and I will write a tutorial explaining how I did it.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Odd, but it seems that Wordpress gets more spam than Blogger. I've already had to remove numerous spam comments from this blog. I would have thought it would be the other way around.
Jaffer
· 1 year ago
Bloke, did you turn on the Askimet Plugin ?
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
No I haven't yet Jaffer. I'm waiting to see how things go for awhile. So far the settings that I have (i.e. more than one link in a comment) has done a very good job weeding them out.
Debbie Dolphin
· 1 year ago
Thank you, Bloke for the Nice Avatar compliment and the insight on WP RSS subscriptions!
I see Jaffer has opened file permissions to the Mark of the Beast (666) - hopefully, this will not open the flood-gates of digital hell? (only kidding, Jaffer)
Speaking of humor, “7 Reasons Why Blogger Users Should NOT Switch to Wordpress” post seems to be struggling to hang to the Blogger Battle!
Speaking of opening gates, has anyone updated to Wordpress 2.3.2, yet?
Seems to be some confusion (to me?) at the Bluefur.com blog which states "Attention bloggers if you have manually installed WordPress then you should immediately upgrade to 2.3.2. A security upgrade notice has been issued by WordPress in regards to this."
Unfortunately, there are no instructions on what to do if Bluefur.com installed WordPress 2.3.1. Does Bluefur.com perform the upgrade or do we?
I knew there would be someone making a remark on "666" and I am not surprised it was you :D.
I am going to wait because I have never upgraded a platform yet ! I am still sitting with and older version of ExpressionEngine blog as well ! I am afraid I might screw up my database !
Bloke may be this may be a good time for a tutorial !
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Debbie, I also noticed the Wordpress upgrade notice. Let me know what Bluefur says.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Jaffer, make certain that you backup everything before messing with the database.
Regarding tutorials, I'm working on an idea that I'm going to experiment with tomorrow. If successful it will become a very important notice indeed. Stay tuned...
Kathy
· 1 year ago
Bloke -- Yes, I did just notice the Top Commenters post, but only when I viewed your blog's main page. I usually read you from my feeds (latest posted article), so I did not see it at first. And I gather I'm a top commenter because I'm always needing help from you!
I noticed the announcement of a new version of WP. Terrified to upgrade, of course. I need a little tutorial from you, Bloke.
How is everyone else's avatars showing up in these comments? I'd like to not be the face-less black head 'n shoulders at some point :)
Kathy
· 1 year ago
Here's a question for Bloke or anyone else: All of my post headings (top of browser window) begin with "The Junk Drawer >> Blog Archive >>". I would like for the headings to read only with the post title. This happens for all new posts, too, not just my imported ones from Blogger. I use Windows Live Writer to compose and publish posts.
Thanks, and I hope BB doesn't mind me throwing out a general question here.
Jaffer
· 1 year ago
Hey Kathy, Make sure you are signed into MyBloglog when you comment.
Another great tool is Gravatar which will put a picture with your e-mail whenever you comment. You don't even need to sign in !
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Kathy, you need to click on your "Options", "Permalinks" menus. Then under the "Common Options" heading click on "Custom, specify below" and put this code into the "Custom structure" field:
/%postname%/
That should fix your permalinks structure. Nice eh? In Blogger we had to write lines and lines of code hackery to accomplish the same thing.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
By the way, I wouldn't try to upgrade Wordpress yourself. I think your blog host will do it for you. That's what you pay them for. Check with them first.
Debbie Dolphin
· 1 year ago
My Wordpress 2.3.2 upgrade Ticket status is open with a low priority at BlueFur.com. I hate to make assumptions yet, it seems the security leak of exposing draft posts is not a major issue?
That's the plugin Deb. It's a good idea to make one because it will also help the search engines to index your site.
By the way, Bluefur has a toll free number 1-877-377-9020, ext. #3 for support. Give them a call tomorrow during the day.
Kathy
· 1 year ago
Bloke, This is how my custom looks right now: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
Is it really safe to change it? I'm afraid. Won't that mess up wherever my internal links point?
ps. I don't plan on upgrading WordPress myself now. Will check with my host. Thank you for the suggestion.
Kathy
· 1 year ago
Testing my gravatar. Is this something I have to enable on my blog for others to use?
Kathy
· 1 year ago
Guess that didn't work. Gotta poke around for more information. Bloke, sorry for cluttering your comments. Delete if you wish.
Jaffer
· 1 year ago
Let me check if my Gravatar works here !
You can test run it at my blog as well if you want !
Jaffer
· 1 year ago
Very odd ! I am signed out of MyBlog log and I can still see my picture form there and Kathy's picture !
Kathy
· 1 year ago
Sorry. I see it did work, after I associated my photo with my account. However, I wonder if it's working on my blog. I installed and activated Easy Gravatars and when I left a test comment, there were only outlines where the picture should be. Looked a little screwy, so I de-activated it. Maybe I'll reactivate it and Jaffer, you can comment somewhere to see if you appear. Do you mind if you're still here?
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
WOOHOO! I see you Kathy. Don't worry about the comments. I love comments and the more the merrier. I'm so happy to see your smiling face instead of the ghost from Christmas past.
By the way, your permalinks still don't look right. Did you follow my instructions above?
Kathy
· 1 year ago
Bloke -- Sorry to make a mess of your comments.
Jaffer -- It seems it is working on my blog. I'm seeing lots of gravatars now on the comments. However, I'm curious why, in some cases, there is a very thin outline where pictures should be. When you click into those empty boxes, it loads up that person's site. If anyone can take a look at some comments over on the Junk Drawer and tell me if it looks ugly, I'd appreciate it. I hate to have what looks like missing information on some of my readers' comments. It works fine for many others, just not everyone, and I don't know why. Thanks for all the help!
Kathy
· 1 year ago
Bloke -- Thank you for not minding all my comments. I absolutely LOVE that I can come here for straightforward help and answers. Do you have any idea how RARE that is in the blogosphere? I think you might! Anyway, I didn't make the change to my permalink structure, as I'm afraid to. I wrote you earlier:
Bloke, This is how my custom looks right now: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
Is it really safe to change it? I’m afraid. Won’t that mess up wherever my internal links point?
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Don't worry Kathy. It will work fine. Nothing will get messed up and the changes can be reversed if you want to. Just follow these directions:
In your Wordpress dashboard click on your “Options”, “Permalinks” menus. Then under the “Common Options” heading click on “Custom, specify below” and put this code into the “Custom structure” field:
/%postname%/
No worries.
By the way, I see your Avatars are working fine on your blog too. And thanks to Jaffer for helping out with customer support ;-)
Cheers!
Kathy
· 1 year ago
Bloke -- That custom path doesn't work. It makes searches and past links return a 404 error. It also did not remove the text that prepends every post title. I'll leave it "as is." Afraid to fiddle with it too much. But thank you for the suggestion. It's possible I've done other massaging to my post structure that makes your tip invalid for me. I remember severely messing with my post structure during my migration, and a lot of manual editing within posts that had links in them. It was crazy, and that's enough crazy for me for a while. Thank you for letting me work through this here. You're the best!
Mike
· 1 year ago
Bloke - Regarding spam, I personally recommend Spam Karma as an alternative to Askimet.
Kathy - Two issues here as far as I can see - the displayed TITLE tag and the permalinks for your site.
TITLE tag - the most effective way (and most search engine friendly way) is to include the following code within your header.php file
—
This will display just the post title on the individual pages but display the name of the blog on the home page.
Permalinks - The most SEO friendly way of constructing your permalinks is /%postname%/. Remember that you'll need to have write access to your .htaccess file to make any changes to your permalink structure.
If you're absolutely laser focused with your categories and the titles might help your search engine listings then make your permalinks /%category%/%name%/ but this will only really assist your search results if you have very specific categories.
One thing you need to remember is that any changes made within the WP dashboard for permalinks will not be retrospectively applied so, for example, if your page was called domain.com/widgets/blue-widgets/ because you used /%category%/%name%/ but you've now changed your permalink structure to read /%name%/, the old link will no longer work.
Fortunately, and this is where WordPress kicks Bloggers butt big time, there is always a plugin to solve most things. In this instance I heartily recommend the Permalink Redirection Plugin.
After any changes you make, ensure you update your sitemap within Google Webmaster Tools. The sitemap generator Debbie mentions earlier is excellent and, again, heartily recommended :D
Mike
· 1 year ago
Ackkk.....for some reason the embedded code didn't work...grrr. OK well here's a link to the code you need to include in your header.php file.
Thanks for the support Mike. Maybe I should rename this blog to the Blog Bloke forum for Wordpress issues ;-)
Jaffer
· 1 year ago
I put the following at Kathy's Blog as well.
The Gravatars work great and the comment section looks spiced up with all the beautiful pictures. Now, I believe Kathy, you are using Easy Gravatar. So for all those without a face, Kathy, find a 48×48 image and upload it to your server. Log into Wordpress admin, go to options and click on Easy Gravatars. Replace the address of the Default Image URL.
Debbie Dolphin
· 1 year ago
Hi Bloke, Mike, and Kathy,
Since we have a WordPress issues Forum and a moment to breath between two major holidays plus sailing over to the Bay of WordPress, can we revisit the Permalink issue which seems to need the SEO friendly structure code: /%postname%/ ?
Unfortunately, using /%postname%/ structure drops the ".html" from the Blogger post link that is needed to redirect Blogger posts links for me and possibly Kathy had the same issue.
In order to fix redirecting Blogger Post Links, I (and Kathy?) needed to use this custom structure: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
Perhaps, the Permalink structure can be changed to the /%postname%/ SEO structure in the future after the old Blogger post links die off?
Or does Mike's Permalink Redirection Plugin solve the Blogger problem sooner?
PS. will call Bluefur support when they open.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Hi Deb. I'm having the same problem. I've come to the conclusion that there is no answer. I've searched Google and tried the various techniques out there like this one http://laffers.net/howtos/howto-redirect-blogge..., but nothing works.
The bottom line is:
1. Wordpress doesn't make html docs.
2. Apparently, when Wordpress imports it will change the structure of the permalink to reflect the post title. Meaning, the link structure will be different than the original Blogger post if you have altered the title in any way after first publishing it.
3. Unfortunately I often do that, so after the import most of my links are now structured differently than the original Blogger post. So in my case it looks like I'm screwed.
4. Hence, I've given up on trying to find an easy solution. I've resolved myself to having to manually edit all of my internal links. Considering that I've got thousands of them, I am faced with a very long project for me to do over the next year. Happy New Year, yeah right :(
5. So that means I've also given up on trying to redirect from Blogger post pages. I'm just going to put a redirect for the home page, and a meta noindex tag so that the Search Engines won't penalize me for double content. Take a look at this post http://www.techcounter.com/wordpress/301-perman... for more about this.
I know, this is depressing and I wish I had better news but that's the way I see it unless someone else comes up with a better solution.
Considering that I have thousands of internal links that need to be changed, it looks I will be spending most of my time next year editing. So much for writing.
Now please excuse me as I go shoot myself.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
See UPDATE above: I've found a plugin that will redirect internal post links. Sweet!
Kathy
· 1 year ago
I don't know that this will help. It's more or less just an explanation of what I had to do:
1. I notified Google to stop indexing my Blogspot blog. 2. I set up custom structure to this: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname% 3. That made most of my former search engine results continue working, pointing to the WordPress blog. 4. I had to manually change all my internal links to the new structure. Bloke, at the time I had 112 posts. The process of changing all my internal links from ....p=XXX took one hour, so maybe you're only looking at 10 hours of manual editing. 5. I installed the Redirection plug-in that gives me a 404 Log that I can check for places where old links don't work. They are always the ones where an article (a, an, the, etc) have been stripped from the post title, on the way over from Blogger. I check it daily and set up redirects for every post that returned a 404.
I'm still unsure whether I have more work to do on the Blogger side of the equation. Duplicate content is coming to mind.
I'm sorry if I'm not explaining this very well. My ignorance is showing, but perhaps some nugget of this will help someone else down the road, as sketchy as my explanation is!
Lee
· 1 year ago
I'm really going to throw this discussion into an elementary level. I've been following this thread and really trying to understand what you all are talking about. I get the gist of most of it, but at the most basic level I guess I don't really understand what permalinks are. Are they only important if you are trying to monetize your blog?
Debbie Dolphin
· 1 year ago
My three Observations for Bloke, Kathy, and Lee:
WordPress Upgrades: Service claims Bluefur takes care of the WordPress upgrades? Service claims the WordPress version is located in the cPanel yet, unable to locate it.
However, the fantversion.php file states this: 11.15.0-RELEASE_17853 = '2.3.1' ; which seems to point to the old WordPress version?
Permalink redirection: added: to the old Blogger template.
Seems like no matter which Permalink redirect solution is tried, Google eventually returns a 404 page for the old Blogger Post Permalink.
I am not sure changing internal links every time Google returns a 404 error helps.
Since Google seems intent on sabotaging our efforts, using the SEO recommendation /%postname%/ and verifying internal links are also using the same structure might be the way to go?
We seem to be swimming through the dark unknown waters of Google search strategies again.
@ Lee: Briefly, a Permalink is the URL address of each Blog Post that helps search engines and visitors locate old Posts in the archives of the Blog. I suppose Permalinks may be more important to Money-income producing Blogs yet, Permalinks are also beneficial to non-profit Blogs as well!
Debbie Dolphin
· 1 year ago
Great, just Great! -- forget to trick the Html tags to read the code: <meta content='NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW' name='ROBOTS'/> @ added: (missing code) to the old Blogger template, in my previous comment!
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Kathy, I have almost 900 posts with literally thousands of internal links that are still pointing to the old blog. I spent 10 hours yesterday manually changing them and I barely made a dent. I still have more content that I want import.
Lee, like Debbie says permalinks are the post URL links. They are the stuff that search engines thrive on and if they are screwed up so is your blog.
I agree with Debbie that there doesn't seem to be any known method out there for 301 redirection that actually works. But what's the problem with the meta tag Debbie? That's what I've added to my old Blogger template.
I have an idea how I could fix my internal links but that would mean taking this blog offline, destroying my database and re-importing again. But I've planned for the launch of this blog tomorrow and my wife and child are already complaining I live at the computer too much.
Sigh!
Debbie Dolphin
· 1 year ago
Hi Bloke,
No problems with the Meta Tag! My only problem was the HTML printing of the meta tag to reveal which meta tag code was added to our old Blogger template as way to confirm we have taken the same steps to solve the Permalink redirection problem.
Sorry about that early New Year confusion!
P.S. For now, I need to live with using the additional ".html" Permalink structure due to current Backlinks.
Hopefully, Google will eventually recognize the new WordPress Permalinks? For now, I have stopped worrying about the post link redirection problem that has no immediate solution.
Happy New Year
Debbie Dolphin
· 1 year ago
I have finally discovered why Permalink Redirects from Blogger and WordPress are not 100%.
Google Grammar drops the words "The", "A", etc. from the Post Title when Blogger creates the Post Link.
For example,
Post Title: The Silence of Sambro Island Lighthouse is Golden?
Google also shortens long Post Titles in their Post Link whereas WordPress uses the full Post Title to create their Permalink.
I am not sure there is a solution that will automatically fix this. On the hand, a search of the Post Title with these issues reveals most of the Blogger Permalinks have been replaced by the WordPress Permalinks. No doubt, the few remaining Blogger Permalinks will be dead soon and Post Permalink Redirection will have completed its job??? (In other words, Redirection will no longer be required)
Hopefully, this information helps?
Mike
· 1 year ago
OK let's have a look at this with my tired and hungover brain.
The Permalink Redirection plugin is suitable for when your internal WP permalinks have been changed. It won't help with the legacy links from Blogger. I didn't realise that you needed the .html for the legacy links to work. How very odd...
I'll have a play around on one of my test servers and see what I can come up with. I do recall reading about a way to make the WP posts .html so I'll see if I can hunt it down.
Regarding the naming issues, you should be able to change the post slug for any imported pages fairly easily.
Manage --- Posts --- Edit --- Post slug
Hopefully this will overcome any problems there.
Finding WP version - You can find this within your WordPress Dashboard - it's at the bottom of the page.
WordPress version - The current one available using the Fantastico installer with BlueFlur is 2.3.1
301 redirects do work OK. The problem here is that the 301 would need to be placed in the .htaccess file on the Blogger server which isn't possible.
So, to recap, my understanding is that legacy Blogger URLs haven't been imported correctly using the WP import script. What specifically is wrong with them? I'm sure the answer is above but my alcohol addled brain is struggling to function today!
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
The conclusion I've come to is the conversion from Blogger to Wordpress during the import procedure has changed the permalink structure sufficiently that redirection is impossible. The links must be identical for redirection to work. That would mean manually changing each post link to be exactly the same, and in my case I have have way too many posts to make it feasible.
The way I see it is a redirection will only help for two reasons:
1. To retain Google juice goodwill that you've built with the old blog;
2. To redirect users who do not yet know the blog has moved.
BUT after the search engines have made note of your "noindex" "nofollow" meta tag on the old blog, and the new blog has been reindexed the concern over redirection should become moot. So perhaps the sensible thing to do would be for us to just forget about it and move on, and let the search engines figure it out.
As for me I have an even bigger problem. All of my thousands of internal links are still pointing to the old blog. And because Wordpress has changed their structure a simple search and replace wil not work.
Sigh!
Kathy
· 1 year ago
Folks -- Just a heads-up that I answered my own question about how to remove "Blog Archive" from all of my post titles. This was an annoyance for me because my posts would show up in Google results like this:
"The Junk Drawer >> Blog Archive >> Actual post title, blah, blah blah"
The words "Blog Archive" took up too much of that precious real estate. I guess it's theme-specific, because I don't see this happening on everyone's WP blogs.
Kathy - My advice would be to change around the order of your title tag to POST TITLE --- BLOG NAME.
The reason I suggest that is only the first 65 characters of your page title are used for SEO purposes. If you're writing your titles with search engines in mind and are creating keyword/keyphrase rich titles, you're currently reducing your hit rate because the first 13 characters of your TITLE are the name of the site.
Just my two cents :)
Mike
· 1 year ago
BB - Have you submitted a new sitemap for blogbloke.com? Also are all your internal post links formatted:
a) instabloke.com/2007/10/random-post-title.html
or
b) blogbloke.com/the-random-post-title/
I'm still trying to get my head around the way the import has screwed things up...
Mike
· 1 year ago
Scratch the second part of the question - I've just found a couple of practical examples on your site and can see the problem.
Crap :(
It seems like it's caused by Blogger removing certain grammatical phrases as suggested by Debbie and WordPress isn't able to decipher what Blogger has sent over.
Double crap :(
OK so there's no easy solution to this as far as I can see. I was hoping I could work some SQL magic on your database but it seems like there are a number of factors here including some which would need to be manually applied.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Mike, I haven't got round to the sitemap yet. From what I can figure Wordpress import creates permalinks based on the post title, as opposed to the actual permalink structure. In my case I'm in a habit of changing my titles after hitting the publish button. Hence, the links are now incompatible.
Kathy, Mike is absolutely right about your post titles format. When someone is searching for information they are not looking for your blog title. They are searching for specific keywords.
You want to put your most important keywords first in your title so they won't by edited out of the first 65 characters, and the search engines assume their order of priority.
In other words:
"Bloggers on the Steroids"...
will get a better search result for the keyword "Bloggers" than...
"Most Bloggers on Steroids".
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
UPDATE: The issue with importing Blogger posts into Wordpress is a combination of both what I and Kathy have noted. Obviously they are not compatible and there is no way it seems to fix this except via manual manipulation.
Triple CRAP! I'm screwed :-(
Mike
· 1 year ago
Manual manipulation? I'm not sure that's going to help at all although it might take your mind off the problem ;)
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Now, now Mikey
Debbie Dolphin
· 1 year ago
Manual manipulation? Do I sense some British Humor Mike?
After this day, I need a Manual Massage, a Manual Makeover, and a few Manual Manipulations performed by Mr. Dolphin might me help recover?
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Good golly, now you guys have got me blushing. I've forgotten about all those links already.
Jeffro2pt0
· 1 year ago
Congrats on the move over to the cool, hip, good side of blogging :) You have so much content Bloke that I think the Structure theme suits your blog perfectly. Gives you a nice way of displaying a bunch of the content you've done recently and in the past. I almost switched by blog over to the Structure theme but instead, hacked away at mine again.
Welcome to the WordPress community. By the way, I've added and updated the link to your blog in my blogroll :)
Also of note, would it be possible for someone to come up with an SQL statement that goes through your database and changes all entries that have the old URL to a new URL.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Thanks Jeffro2pt0. This post was mentioned in the Blog Herald today so I guess I've been officially accepted into the community.
There is a nice plugin I found that will search and replace in the database and you can find it here:
I wouldn't recommend fiddling with the database directly which could be catastrophic if used incorrectly. This also won't help my problem either because the internal link structure has changed too significantly and randomly.
Curtis
· 1 year ago
Very well written. I am playing with websited but I can’t figure out how to map my domain to the host. Right now they have me using growthumbs.websited.net/blog
Darren
· 1 year ago
Very useful post BB. Its been so long since I made the switch (I went from blogger to MT to WP!) that it’s good to have a more up to date description of it.
Jaffer
· 1 year ago
What happedned to all the comments on this post ? The great big discussion ?
Hi Darren ! Happy 2008 !
Darren
· 1 year ago
Hi Jaffer - Happy New year to you too.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Strange. I was trying out the plugin called "Sticky" and it created a duplicate copy of this post. So I deleted it and moved the comments over here. That's why they seemed to disappear Jaffer. I think I will be removing that plugin forthwith.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Thanks Darren. It also serves as a useful reminder to those bloggers who like myself were hedging on whether or not to make the switch. The sooner you make the move the better or you will end up like I did -- with a lot of extra work on your hands.
I tried migrating my Blogger blog about a year ago and had all kinds of trouble. So,I basically just copied and pasted the best posts into my Wordpress blog and gave the new one a different emphasis.
I still use Blogger along with using Wordpress. Both are good blogging platforms and each has its' own strengths and weaknesses. I really haven't been convinced that one is better than the other so that is why I still use both.
Blog Bloke
· 1 year ago
Hi Ben. Wordpress has improved its import facility this year as compared to what it was like before, but it's still not perfect. Thanks for dropping by.
Günter Zöchbauer
· 1 year ago
I think it was Darren Rowse who mentioned how important it is to use an own domain for a blog right from the beginning.
This is just another reason to do it.
After importing the posts into WP and reconfiguring the DNS all backlinks, Google indexes, internal links, ... should work as usual.
I have just started to blog using Blogger 2 months ago and switched to my own domain these days. The old url is redirected automatically but Google dropped all indexed sites during the next indexing using the old url. Google seems to not like redirects. But that was not a big problem because most of the sites were again indexed 4 days afterwards - Google seems to like blogs ;-)
It's likely that I switch to WP some day and are hoping that the switch will work as smooth as expected :-|
I'm not too worried though because this domain has been around long enough to still have Google juice. But the real problem facing me is all those internal links still pointing to the old blog posts.
Thanks for dropping by and if you think you might switch over to Wordpress - do it sooner than later and save yourself some headaches.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Mun, that is another very good reason for leaving Blogger. We now own our blog and its content.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Curtis, in the long run I think it would be best for you to switch to a paid hosting service. You get support, no ads and complete ownership and control over your blog. It's worth it. I just used the free service websited.net to familiarize myself with Wordpress.
Curtis
· 1 year ago
Thanks Bloke. I intend to do just that soon. I found a service called award space and am using them for free. They also have paid versions which look good for the money.
Anyone have experience with Award Space?
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
I use Bluefur myself for this blog and I've been very happy so far. Others I hear are looking at a company called Orange, whilst others that I know use Dream Host.
manele
· 1 year ago
thx for your advices...wordpress is better than blogger!
Debra Durham
· 1 year ago
A late find - and what a gem! The post was just what I needed, and so many great comments with answers to the very questions I have been struggling with in anticipation of my own migration. Kudos on a great post and community.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Hi Manele and Debra. Thanks for dropping by and welcome to the community!
GG
· 1 year ago
Ahh, someone else who moved from Blogger to Word Press. I've faced some of the same problems. I was actually using the old Blogger because I hosted on my own domain. What a mess on the transfer BUT the good news is that I learned a lot for when I move my other blogs over.
I had a template designed for Word Press and there were glitches and then once we got it up to speed for widgets--more glitches. So now I am into day six and feeling good about the move.
Yes, spam has been a big problem but I like that I can block the incoming IP and also use Askimet. I have over 700 pages to check and correct links on--ugh.
I'm with you--anyone working on a plug-in?
My readers have given me good feedback and I've already attracted some advertisers--something that didn't happen with Blogger.
Glad I found your post...it is good to know I am not slugging through this alone...
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
What's that they say about misery loving company ;-)
Like I said earlier GG I have an idea how to prevent the internal links problem and I will post my results at a later time. Thanks for dropping by and welcome to the community.
Unirtiery
· 1 year ago
Hi, I'm new! How are you?
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Who - me? I'm a little older, and thanks for asking ;-)
David Scurlock
· 1 year ago
I love your blog. You have some very interesting reading, I hope to see more on your blog. very nice.
Thanks for saying so David and I hope to read more of your comments.
Showbiz Intriga? Get It From B
· 1 year ago
hi blogbloke!
been an RSS subscriber for a year already, from your old feed to the new one.
And thru your posts i am convinced to move to wordpress from blogger and it will be tomorrow!
my only concern is the template. Can i preserve my present template in blogger to wordpress??
Showbiz Intriga? Get It From B
· 1 year ago
hi again!
i just learned that when you delete a blogspot blog, someone most likely an adult or spam blog replaces your old domain! is there a way to retain the old blogspot blog without hurting PR?backlinks,etc..???
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Regarding PR and backlinks, I will be writing a post about redirecting your old blog to minimize PR and backlink loss, but remember there are NO perfect solutions and there will be a certain amount of loss in the process. There's no getting around that unfortunately, but the sooner you make the move the better it will be over the long term.
FeR
· 1 year ago
Hi! It's amazing to hear so many stories of "easy" migration from Blogger to Wordpress! I'm jealous because I've been having multiple problems since I decided to migrate.
Would anyone know why is it that when I imported the XML file that I've previously imported from wordpress.com to the wordpress on my domain, all the posts were uploaded but I can't click on the archive links on my website.
Only the main page shows my recent posts...any other link doesn't work and attempts to click on it would bring you to a "page not found". Funny thing is that I see all the posts when I log into admin dashboard!
Am really confused...
When I hover over the link, I realise it reads something like this "www.website.com/wordpress/2008/01" but I realise there isn't any 2008 or 01 folder in my cpanel...am I missing a step in the migration?
I've followed everything to the T.
*sigh*
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
FeR, it sounds like your permalink structure needs to be changed but if you will provide your blog address I will be happy to take a look for you.
Cheers!
Tech? get it from Boy!
· 1 year ago
I have successfully moved to Wordpress with so many tutorials around including this post by blogbloke, which if this is a rule, should be rule no.1 to read. Like a Bible for moving to Wordpress!
You're such a good tech writer and technician actually. Keep up the good work BlogBloke.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Thank you so much. Coming from one geek to another, your comments are humbling and much appreciated.
Henry
· 1 year ago
Hi, You got a very nice site. I just bookmarked it.
amine
· 1 year ago
Thanks for the support Mike. Maybe I should rename this blog to the Blog Bloke forum for Wordpress issues
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Hi Amine.
This blog used to be hosted on Blogger and you will therefore find a plethora of blog tips that are written specifically for Blogger users.
Admittedly, since switching over to Wordpress some of the more recent blog tips have been geared towards Wordpress users. However, this blog has and will continue to remain a blog written for the benefit ALL bloggers, regardless of which platform they may choose.
Cheers!
Dette
· 1 year ago
Hey there - I just read several of your articles and just HAD to write. I'm quite a newbie blogger (2 months) and am thinking of switching to Wordpress. But when I started the process yesterday, just found out the difference between WP.com and WP.org. :(
Of course, not before I started customizing a WP blog. Big difference between www.danceofmotherhood.blogspot.com and www.danceofmotherhood.wordpress.com. I even went so far as to purchase a domain from GoDaddy - just need to figure out how to use it. lol. I feel like I'm back in school, trying to learn all these new tricks!
I've installed a couple of hacks and widgets or whatnot on my blogspot blog - with some helpful tips, but when I started reading about moving from WP.com to WP.org - I got a headache.
So the magic question for you is: Would you recommend WP.org for newbies who don't have as much to move over, like access to the code that Blogger offers, but aren't confident about, well, anything else like hosting, bandwith, backing up, etc?
I almost feel like I already know the answer, but dag gummit! WP has some really cool features. (sigh) What to do.
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Sorry for not getting back to you sooner Dette but I just discovered your comment today. You can always run Wordpress on a blog host provider but it will cost a few bucks a month. I think the bottom line is if you want to run a professional blog then Wordpress is still THE best choice out there. The New Blogger has improved but still can't compete.
Kat
· 1 year ago
hi…
im a newbie when it comes to blogging eventhough i have started to create a blog april of last year. i am using blogger and i am maintaining 2 blogs. One for my own and the other one is for our church…
i would like to know on the ways, the what to do’s and how to do things to impove my blog…
please inform me on what should I add or remove from my blog…please give us constructive criticisms…
things you can help me with are the template of the blog, the layout, the free widgets, logo, stuff like that…
please help me improve our blog…
so looking forward to hearing from you soon…
thanks in advance…
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Hi Kat. To be honest you have far too many scripts and widgets running. Right off the bat I was hit with music playing which is generally frowned upon. You also may be violating copyright law by playing the music.
Your page takes so long to load that it crashed my browser and I had to close it. The bottom line is you really should not be running so many scripts because it slows down your blog loading time. Most visitors will only give you a few seconds at most before running out of patience and moving on.
The biggest issue of moving from blogger over to wordpress is moving blogger images to the new domain! Indeed I set up a blog for a friend, everything moved to the new domain EXCEPT images. Images were hotlinked from blogger platform! Does anyone know a trick or plugin to move images from blogger to wordpress (self hosted domain)????
I found your site on faves.com bookmarking site.. I like it ..gave it a fave for you..ill be checking back later
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Thanks Jerry
frank
· 1 year ago
Great Information blog ! Thank you for keeping up the good work. I look forward to returning to your blog, and learning more from you !
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Hi Frank. Thanks for the kind comment. It means a lot to me and welcome to the community.
Radu
· 1 year ago
I moved from blogger to wordpress and my old google links return a "Not found" message. It feels like i lost the google juice. Any odea how long it will take to get back on track?
i started with blogger and find it easier to customize. thought i could give wordpress a try so i started another blog there. i never thought i'd be so frustrated with me not being able to customize the css (i have to upgrade just to customize)...sssshheeeessshhh maybe i need some time to get adjusted, oh well.
I have a silly question, so forgive me, but it is relevant and I thought Bloke or Bloke's great commenter's know-how could help.
I am a blogger with a custom domain, pointing at a free Blogger blog. The site is only two weeks old, but I have already decided to just get it over with already and make the move that many do... moving to self-hosted Wordpress!
My question is this, I would like to know what happens to your template, header, widgets etc, when you export/ import the XML file to a self-hosted blog of another platform. That is to say, I like my blogger template, but will I be able to export/ import from free Blogger to self-hosted Wordpress, with my custom domain and click and see the blog with the exact same layout/ widgets etc.?
Forgive the ask, but I have never done a move like this. I appreciate even simple feedback.
Amy x
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
No worries Amy.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but no, you can't import your template into Wordpress. Only your posts and comments can. My recommendation is to find a Wordpress theme that you like and then change the header to look like your Blogger blog. After than you can also alter the CSS styleheet to the colors you prefer.
The good news is there are probably plugins out there that will do the same thing that your widgets can, and more.
admin
· 1 year ago
thanks a lot for this great tip! i have finally moved my blogger account into wordpress platform including SEO points hopefully, it worked perfectly from my vertito.blogspot.com blogger account
nice ! keep it up!
BLOGBloke
· 1 year ago
Thanks for the feedback and glad to hear it worked for you.
Mia
· 1 year ago
Hello! You said: "Of course there are techniques that I can use to mitigate some of the more adverse affects of moving such as pagerank, but I will discuss that in another post."
Is it the post titled "Migrating Redirecting Blogger to Wordpress"? if not, could you give us the link to that post? :) Thanks in advance, I found your blog to be VERY helpful.
I haven't written that post yet Mia. Thanks for reminding me. But “Migrating Redirecting Blogger to Wordpress" is a good place to start.
TJantunen
· 1 year ago
I moved my posts from blogger beta to wordpress without using any plugins. I wrote instructions into my blog: http://tjantunen.com/2007/03/21/import-blogger-... It takes a few minutes and you do not need to use any plugins.
TJantunens last blog post...<a href="http://tjantunen.com/2008/10/26/tnxnet-monetize-your-blog-easily/" rel="nofollow">TNX.net monetize your blog easily
Gus
· 1 year ago
I made the switch over to wordpress a while back and although I have to say it was a pain in the beginning, after a while I really got used to it. I now am in the position to say that I really like wordpress and all the features and pluggins it supports.
eJob
· 10 months ago
Hey, thanks a lot for the information. Very helpful, considering i am about to go aheam with the move on one of my blogs. Great site by the way. Bookmarked it.
Daniel Horace
· 9 months ago
I have to admit that while wordpress is hard to install at first and somewhat complicated to use, it's flexibility and ability to do almost anything (via plugins) is amazing. Plus the support for wordpress (from wordpress.org) is top notch and free. Can't beat that.
Martin Ferro-Thomsen
· 8 months ago
Very helpful. I followed some of your tricks and learned a few of my own. I wrote this post about moving from Blogger to Wordpress 2.7 using Godaddy Economy Hosting: http://ferrogate.com/2009/04/the-new-ferrogate-...
Yoga
· 3 months ago
You chose the best option. Wordpress is #1
adina
· 2 months ago
I only use blogger for fun, but I am surprised serious bloggers still seem to be using it- I mean they can just delete your blog any time they fancy!
If i was serious about blogging, I think WP and your own hosting is a must!
All Comments
Google Present Ration (PR) falling???
Perhaps, these minor issues will be solved soon by the benefits of using WordPress?
For reasons unknown, my RSS subscriptions have doubled since moving to WordPress which could be a clue as to how insignificant Google's rating or ranking systems may be?
Is it possible to strike out the word NOT in the "7 Reasons Why Blogger Users Should NOT Switch to WordPress?
Might be better to keep adding to the list of 8 great reasons for sailing to WordPress listed in my post and comments at New England Lighthouse Blog has Sailed to the New World of WordPress!
Other than a few initial bumps like using Firefox NOT Safari, searching for the needle in the Header Code to hide the link in the Header image, and the Permalink issue, I found the WordPress Dashboard very easy to learn and use compared to Blogger.
Happy New Year,
Debbie Dolphin
I still have a lot of questions for which I'm not finding answers. And some of them are simple ones. Kinda frustrating. Anyway, glad to see you up and running. I've updated my feed.
Do you guys have any resources or websites that you can point me to ?
The biggest issue for me was finding a theme that allowed me to make changes to the header image. I wanted to be able to showcase some of my photography in a way that contributed to my blog. The theme I've chose not only does that, but it also allows me to use multiple images which are randomly cycled each time the page is refreshed. I'm thrilled with the results of installing the chosen theme.
Anyway, today I also added a Blokester button to my sidebar with a link back here. So, even though I wasn't one of those with a previous link-back, there's one for you now. :0)
http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/06/21/bring-life...
Lee, you can always manually edit the theme files in wp-content/themes.
To change the header image, all you have to do is edit the header.php file !
If you server allows changing file permissions (to 666), you can even edit your theme within the word press environment
The reason you are getting more RSS subscriptions is probably because you moved to Wordpress. When you're on WP you are somehow taken more seriously.
Heh, the “7 Reasons Why Blogger Users Should NOT Switch to Wordpress" is kind of embarrassing but I have no control over that. It's a plugin that automatically inserts it. Then again, maybe it's good to read the flip side of the argument as well.
We're all learning as we go with Wordpress. But as a community we can grow together and help each other out.
Jaffer is right about the header.php file. That is where I modified my header/banner. If you want, let me know and I will write a tutorial explaining how I did it.
I see Jaffer has opened file permissions to the Mark of the Beast (666) - hopefully, this will not open the flood-gates of digital hell? (only kidding, Jaffer)
Speaking of humor, “7 Reasons Why Blogger Users Should NOT Switch to Wordpress” post seems to be struggling to hang to the Blogger Battle!
Speaking of opening gates, has anyone updated to Wordpress 2.3.2, yet?
Seems to be some confusion (to me?) at the Bluefur.com blog which states
"Attention bloggers if you have manually installed WordPress then you should immediately upgrade to 2.3.2. A security upgrade notice has been issued by WordPress in regards to this."
Unfortunately, there are no instructions on what to do if Bluefur.com installed WordPress 2.3.1. Does Bluefur.com perform the upgrade or do we?
I also eMailed Bluefur.com to check on this.
I am going to wait because I have never upgraded a platform yet !
I am still sitting with and older version of ExpressionEngine blog as well !
I am afraid I might screw up my database !
Bloke may be this may be a good time for a tutorial !
Regarding tutorials, I'm working on an idea that I'm going to experiment with tomorrow. If successful it will become a very important notice indeed. Stay tuned...
I noticed the announcement of a new version of WP. Terrified to upgrade, of course. I need a little tutorial from you, Bloke.
How is everyone else's avatars showing up in these comments? I'd like to not be the face-less black head 'n shoulders at some point :)
Thanks, and I hope BB doesn't mind me throwing out a general question here.
Make sure you are signed into MyBloglog when you comment.
Another great tool is Gravatar which will put a picture with your e-mail whenever you comment. You don't even need to sign in !
/%postname%/
That should fix your permalinks structure. Nice eh? In Blogger we had to write lines and lines of code hackery to accomplish the same thing.
The best Wordpress Sitemap option is also another unknown. Did you use the
Sitemap Generator Plugin for Wordpress?
By the way, Bluefur has a toll free number 1-877-377-9020, ext. #3 for support. Give them a call tomorrow during the day.
This is how my custom looks right now:
/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
Is it really safe to change it? I'm afraid. Won't that mess up wherever my internal links point?
ps. I don't plan on upgrading WordPress myself now. Will check with my host. Thank you for the suggestion.
You can test run it at my blog as well if you want !
By the way, your permalinks still don't look right. Did you follow my instructions above?
Jaffer -- It seems it is working on my blog. I'm seeing lots of gravatars now on the comments. However, I'm curious why, in some cases, there is a very thin outline where pictures should be. When you click into those empty boxes, it loads up that person's site. If anyone can take a look at some comments over on the Junk Drawer and tell me if it looks ugly, I'd appreciate it. I hate to have what looks like missing information on some of my readers' comments. It works fine for many others, just not everyone, and I don't know why. Thanks for all the help!
Bloke,
This is how my custom looks right now:
/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
Is it really safe to change it? I’m afraid. Won’t that mess up wherever my internal links point?
In your Wordpress dashboard click on your “Options”, “Permalinks” menus. Then under the “Common Options” heading click on “Custom, specify below” and put this code into the “Custom structure” field:
/%postname%/
No worries.
By the way, I see your Avatars are working fine on your blog too. And thanks to Jaffer for helping out with customer support ;-)
Cheers!
Kathy - Two issues here as far as I can see - the displayed TITLE tag and the permalinks for your site.
TITLE tag - the most effective way (and most search engine friendly way) is to include the following code within your header.php file
—This will display just the post title on the individual pages but display the name of the blog on the home page.
Permalinks - The most SEO friendly way of constructing your permalinks is /%postname%/. Remember that you'll need to have write access to your .htaccess file to make any changes to your permalink structure.
If you're absolutely laser focused with your categories and the titles might help your search engine listings then make your permalinks /%category%/%name%/ but this will only really assist your search results if you have very specific categories.
One thing you need to remember is that any changes made within the WP dashboard for permalinks will not be retrospectively applied so, for example, if your page was called domain.com/widgets/blue-widgets/ because you used /%category%/%name%/ but you've now changed your permalink structure to read /%name%/, the old link will no longer work.
Fortunately, and this is where WordPress kicks Bloggers butt big time, there is always a plugin to solve most things. In this instance I heartily recommend the Permalink Redirection Plugin.
After any changes you make, ensure you update your sitemap within Google Webmaster Tools. The sitemap generator Debbie mentions earlier is excellent and, again, heartily recommended :D
Link
The Gravatars work great and the comment section looks spiced up with all the beautiful pictures.
Now, I believe Kathy, you are using Easy Gravatar. So for all those without a face, Kathy, find a 48×48 image and upload it to your server.
Log into Wordpress admin, go to options and click on Easy Gravatars.
Replace the address of the Default Image URL.
Since we have a WordPress issues Forum and a moment to breath between two major holidays plus sailing over to the Bay of WordPress,
can we revisit the Permalink issue which seems to need the SEO friendly structure code: /%postname%/ ?
Unfortunately, using /%postname%/ structure drops the ".html" from the Blogger post link that is needed to redirect Blogger posts links for me and possibly Kathy had the same issue.
In order to fix redirecting Blogger Post Links, I (and Kathy?) needed to use this custom structure: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
Perhaps, the Permalink structure can be changed to the /%postname%/ SEO structure in the future after the old Blogger post links die off?
Or does Mike's Permalink Redirection Plugin solve the Blogger problem sooner?
PS. will call Bluefur support when they open.
The bottom line is:
1. Wordpress doesn't make html docs.
2. Apparently, when Wordpress imports it will change the structure of the permalink to reflect the post title. Meaning, the link structure will be different than the original Blogger post if you have altered the title in any way after first publishing it.
3. Unfortunately I often do that, so after the import most of my links are now structured differently than the original Blogger post. So in my case it looks like I'm screwed.
4. Hence, I've given up on trying to find an easy solution. I've resolved myself to having to manually edit all of my internal links. Considering that I've got thousands of them, I am faced with a very long project for me to do over the next year. Happy New Year, yeah right :(
5. So that means I've also given up on trying to redirect from Blogger post pages. I'm just going to put a redirect for the home page, and a meta noindex tag so that the Search Engines won't penalize me for double content. Take a look at this post http://www.techcounter.com/wordpress/301-perman... for more about this.
I know, this is depressing and I wish I had better news but that's the way I see it unless someone else comes up with a better solution.
Considering that I have thousands of internal links that need to be changed, it looks I will be spending most of my time next year editing. So much for writing.
Now please excuse me as I go shoot myself.
1. I notified Google to stop indexing my Blogspot blog.
2. I set up custom structure to this: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%
3. That made most of my former search engine results continue working, pointing to the WordPress blog.
4. I had to manually change all my internal links to the new structure. Bloke, at the time I had 112 posts. The process of changing all my internal links from ....p=XXX took one hour, so maybe you're only looking at 10 hours of manual editing.
5. I installed the Redirection plug-in that gives me a 404 Log that I can check for places where old links don't work. They are always the ones where an article (a, an, the, etc) have been stripped from the post title, on the way over from Blogger. I check it daily and set up redirects for every post that returned a 404.
I'm still unsure whether I have more work to do on the Blogger side of the equation. Duplicate content is coming to mind.
I'm sorry if I'm not explaining this very well. My ignorance is showing, but perhaps some nugget of this will help someone else down the road, as sketchy as my explanation is!
WordPress Upgrades:
Service claims Bluefur takes care of the WordPress upgrades?
Service claims the WordPress version is located in the cPanel yet, unable to locate it.
However, the fantversion.php file states this: 11.15.0-RELEASE_17853 = '2.3.1' ;
which seems to point to the old WordPress version?
Permalink redirection:
added: to the old Blogger template.
Seems like no matter which Permalink redirect solution is tried, Google eventually returns a 404 page for the old Blogger Post Permalink.
I am not sure changing internal links every time Google returns a 404 error helps.
Since Google seems intent on sabotaging our efforts, using the SEO recommendation /%postname%/ and verifying internal links are also using the same structure might be the way to go?
We seem to be swimming through the dark unknown waters of Google search strategies again.
@ Lee: Briefly, a Permalink is the URL address of each Blog Post that helps search engines and visitors locate old Posts in the archives of the Blog. I suppose Permalinks may be more important to Money-income producing Blogs yet, Permalinks are also beneficial to non-profit Blogs as well!
Lee, like Debbie says permalinks are the post URL links. They are the stuff that search engines thrive on and if they are screwed up so is your blog.
I agree with Debbie that there doesn't seem to be any known method out there for 301 redirection that actually works. But what's the problem with the meta tag Debbie? That's what I've added to my old Blogger template.
I have an idea how I could fix my internal links but that would mean taking this blog offline, destroying my database and re-importing again. But I've planned for the launch of this blog tomorrow and my wife and child are already complaining I live at the computer too much.
Sigh!
No problems with the Meta Tag!
My only problem was the HTML printing of the meta tag to reveal which meta tag code was added to our old Blogger template as way to confirm we have taken the same steps to solve the Permalink redirection problem.
Sorry about that early New Year confusion!
P.S. For now, I need to live with using the additional ".html" Permalink structure due to current Backlinks.
Hopefully, Google will eventually recognize the new WordPress Permalinks?
For now, I have stopped worrying about the post link redirection problem that has no immediate solution.
Happy New Year
Google Grammar drops the words "The", "A", etc. from the Post Title when Blogger creates the Post Link.
For example,
Post Title: The Silence of Sambro Island Lighthouse is Golden?
Blogger:
http://lighthousestars.com/2007/11/silence-of-s...
WordPress:
http://lighthousestars.com/2007/11/the-silence-...
____________________
Google also shortens long Post Titles in their Post Link whereas WordPress uses the full Post Title to create their Permalink.
I am not sure there is a solution that will automatically fix this. On the hand, a search of the Post Title with these issues reveals most of the Blogger Permalinks have been replaced by the WordPress Permalinks. No doubt, the few remaining Blogger Permalinks will be dead soon and Post Permalink Redirection will have completed its job??? (In other words, Redirection will no longer be required)
Hopefully, this information helps?
The Permalink Redirection plugin is suitable for when your internal WP permalinks have been changed. It won't help with the legacy links from Blogger. I didn't realise that you needed the .html for the legacy links to work. How very odd...
I'll have a play around on one of my test servers and see what I can come up with. I do recall reading about a way to make the WP posts .html so I'll see if I can hunt it down.
Regarding the naming issues, you should be able to change the post slug for any imported pages fairly easily.
Manage --- Posts --- Edit --- Post slug
Hopefully this will overcome any problems there.
Finding WP version - You can find this within your WordPress Dashboard - it's at the bottom of the page.
WordPress version - The current one available using the Fantastico installer with BlueFlur is 2.3.1
301 redirects do work OK. The problem here is that the 301 would need to be placed in the .htaccess file on the Blogger server which isn't possible.
So, to recap, my understanding is that legacy Blogger URLs haven't been imported correctly using the WP import script. What specifically is wrong with them? I'm sure the answer is above but my alcohol addled brain is struggling to function today!
The way I see it is a redirection will only help for two reasons:
1. To retain Google juice goodwill that you've built with the old blog;
2. To redirect users who do not yet know the blog has moved.
BUT after the search engines have made note of your "noindex" "nofollow" meta tag on the old blog, and the new blog has been reindexed the concern over redirection should become moot. So perhaps the sensible thing to do would be for us to just forget about it and move on, and let the search engines figure it out.
As for me I have an even bigger problem. All of my thousands of internal links are still pointing to the old blog. And because Wordpress has changed their structure a simple search and replace wil not work.
Sigh!
"The Junk Drawer >> Blog Archive >> Actual post title, blah, blah blah"
The words "Blog Archive" took up too much of that precious real estate. I guess it's theme-specific, because I don't see this happening on everyone's WP blogs.
This is what I used to remove the two extraneous words:
http://www.ehowtoguru.com/2007/10/16/how-to-rem...
The reason I suggest that is only the first 65 characters of your page title are used for SEO purposes. If you're writing your titles with search engines in mind and are creating keyword/keyphrase rich titles, you're currently reducing your hit rate because the first 13 characters of your TITLE are the name of the site.
Just my two cents :)
a) instabloke.com/2007/10/random-post-title.html
or
b) blogbloke.com/the-random-post-title/
I'm still trying to get my head around the way the import has screwed things up...
Crap :(
It seems like it's caused by Blogger removing certain grammatical phrases as suggested by Debbie and WordPress isn't able to decipher what Blogger has sent over.
Double crap :(
OK so there's no easy solution to this as far as I can see. I was hoping I could work some SQL magic on your database but it seems like there are a number of factors here including some which would need to be manually applied.
Kathy, Mike is absolutely right about your post titles format. When someone is searching for information they are not looking for your blog title. They are searching for specific keywords.
You want to put your most important keywords first in your title so they won't by edited out of the first 65 characters, and the search engines assume their order of priority.
In other words:
"Bloggers on the Steroids"...
will get a better search result for the keyword "Bloggers" than...
"Most Bloggers on Steroids".
Triple CRAP! I'm screwed :-(
After this day, I need a Manual Massage, a Manual Makeover, and a few Manual Manipulations performed by Mr. Dolphin might me help recover?
Welcome to the WordPress community. By the way, I've added and updated the link to your blog in my blogroll :)
Also of note, would it be possible for someone to come up with an SQL statement that goes through your database and changes all entries that have the old URL to a new URL.
There is a nice plugin I found that will search and replace in the database and you can find it here:
http://thedeadone.net/software/search-and-repla...
I wouldn't recommend fiddling with the database directly which could be catastrophic if used incorrectly. This also won't help my problem either because the internal link structure has changed too significantly and randomly.
Hi Darren ! Happy 2008 !
I moved to WordPress, not by choice. Google took away my blog. I have mentioned it here at http://munfitnessblog.com/a-new-beginning-for-m...
I still use Blogger along with using Wordpress. Both are good blogging platforms and each has its' own strengths and weaknesses.
I really haven't been convinced that one is better than the other so that is why I still use both.
This is just another reason to do it.
After importing the posts into WP and reconfiguring the DNS all backlinks, Google indexes, internal links, ... should work as usual.
I have just started to blog using Blogger 2 months ago and switched to my own domain these days.
The old url is redirected automatically but Google dropped all indexed sites during the next indexing using the old url. Google seems to not like redirects.
But that was not a big problem because most of the sites were again indexed 4 days afterwards - Google seems to like blogs ;-)
It's likely that I switch to WP some day and are hoping that the switch will work as smooth as expected :-|
Anyway - nice and useful post.
I'm not too worried though because this domain has been around long enough to still have Google juice. But the real problem facing me is all those internal links still pointing to the old blog posts.
Thanks for dropping by and if you think you might switch over to Wordpress - do it sooner than later and save yourself some headaches.
Anyone have experience with Award Space?
I had a template designed for Word Press and there were glitches and then once we got it up to speed for widgets--more glitches. So now I am into day six and feeling good about the move.
Yes, spam has been a big problem but I like that I can block the incoming IP and also use Askimet. I have over 700 pages to check and correct links on--ugh.
I'm with you--anyone working on a plug-in?
My readers have given me good feedback and I've already attracted some advertisers--something that didn't happen with Blogger.
Glad I found your post...it is good to know I am not slugging through this alone...
Like I said earlier GG I have an idea how to prevent the internal links problem and I will post my results at a later time. Thanks for dropping by and welcome to the community.
I'm new! How are you?
Thank-You
http://www.seoarticlerewriter.com
been an RSS subscriber for a year already, from your old feed to the new one.
And thru your posts i am convinced to move to wordpress from blogger and it will be tomorrow!
my only concern is the template. Can i preserve my present template in blogger to wordpress??
i just learned that when you delete a blogspot blog, someone most likely an adult or spam blog replaces your old domain! is there a way to retain the old blogspot blog without hurting PR?backlinks,etc..???
It's amazing to hear so many stories of "easy" migration from Blogger to Wordpress! I'm jealous because I've been having multiple problems since I decided to migrate.
Would anyone know why is it that when I imported the XML file that I've previously imported from wordpress.com to the wordpress on my domain, all the posts were uploaded but I can't click on the archive links on my website.
Only the main page shows my recent posts...any other link doesn't work and attempts to click on it would bring you to a "page not found". Funny thing is that I see all the posts when I log into admin dashboard!
Am really confused...
When I hover over the link, I realise it reads something like this "www.website.com/wordpress/2008/01" but I realise there isn't any 2008 or 01 folder in my cpanel...am I missing a step in the migration?
I've followed everything to the T.
*sigh*
Cheers!
You're such a good tech writer and technician actually. Keep up the good work BlogBloke.
This blog used to be hosted on Blogger and you will therefore find a plethora of blog tips that are written specifically for Blogger users.
Admittedly, since switching over to Wordpress some of the more recent blog tips have been geared towards Wordpress users. However, this blog has and will continue to remain a blog written for the benefit ALL bloggers, regardless of which platform they may choose.
Cheers!
Of course, not before I started customizing a WP blog. Big difference between www.danceofmotherhood.blogspot.com and www.danceofmotherhood.wordpress.com. I even went so far as to purchase a domain from GoDaddy - just need to figure out how to use it. lol. I feel like I'm back in school, trying to learn all these new tricks!
I've installed a couple of hacks and widgets or whatnot on my blogspot blog - with some helpful tips, but when I started reading about moving from WP.com to WP.org - I got a headache.
So the magic question for you is: Would you recommend WP.org for newbies who don't have as much to move over, like access to the code that Blogger offers, but aren't confident about, well, anything else like hosting, bandwith, backing up, etc?
I almost feel like I already know the answer, but dag gummit! WP has some really cool features. (sigh) What to do.
im a newbie when it comes to blogging eventhough i have started to create a blog april of last year. i am using blogger and i am maintaining 2 blogs. One for my own and the other one is for our church…
i would like to know on the ways, the what to do’s and how to do things to impove my blog…
please visit our blog. it’s dgtegospelchurch.blogspot.com
please inform me on what should I add or remove from my blog…please give us constructive criticisms…
things you can help me with are the template of the blog, the layout, the free widgets, logo, stuff like that…
please help me improve our blog…
so looking forward to hearing from you soon…
thanks in advance…
Your page takes so long to load that it crashed my browser and I had to close it. The bottom line is you really should not be running so many scripts because it slows down your blog loading time. Most visitors will only give you a few seconds at most before running out of patience and moving on.
I hope that helps.
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maybe i need some time to get adjusted, oh well.
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I have a silly question, so forgive me, but it is relevant and I thought Bloke or Bloke's great commenter's know-how could help.
I am a blogger with a custom domain, pointing at a free Blogger blog. The site is only two weeks old, but I have already decided to just get it over with already and make the move that many do... moving to self-hosted Wordpress!
My question is this, I would like to know what happens to your template, header, widgets etc, when you export/ import the XML file to a self-hosted blog of another platform. That is to say, I like my blogger template, but will I be able to export/ import from free Blogger to self-hosted Wordpress, with my custom domain and click and see the blog with the exact same layout/ widgets etc.?
Forgive the ask, but I have never done a move like this. I appreciate even simple feedback.
Amy x
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but no, you can't import your template into Wordpress. Only your posts and comments can. My recommendation is to find a Wordpress theme that you like and then change the header to look like your Blogger blog. After than you can also alter the CSS styleheet to the colors you prefer.
The good news is there are probably plugins out there that will do the same thing that your widgets can, and more.
nice ! keep it up!
You said: "Of course there are techniques that I can use to mitigate some of the more adverse affects of moving such as pagerank, but I will discuss that in another post."
Is it the post titled "Migrating Redirecting Blogger to Wordpress"? if not, could you give us the link to that post? :) Thanks in advance, I found your blog to be VERY helpful.
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It takes a few minutes and you do not need to use any plugins.
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If i was serious about blogging, I think WP and your own hosting is a must!