How To Perform A Website Migration

So you have a client who wants to move their blog from Blogger to WordPress? You’ve done a bit of searching and there is a LOT of information out there about how to move…

And a lot of it is in techno-speak that makes absolutely no sense.

I’m going to attempt to explain it in plain English. By the end of this post, you should be able to successfully move a website without losing any backlinks (that means when there are links out on other sites or social media and you don’t want them to break when you move).

 

Getting the WordPress.org site ready

Step One: Have your client purchase a hosting package and a domain name.

Before they do, ask them a couple of questions. Do they currently have a Blogger blog that reads like this…

1. http://mydomain.blogspot.com

or

2. http://mydomain.com?

If they have a number one, they can buy a new domain and hosting package all at once. If they have number two and it’s currently linked to their Blogger site, then they should just buy the hosting package and tell them that they already own the domain. You’ll build their site on a temporary IP address until they are ready to go live. I work with three companies – WebHosting Hub, Bluehost, and Hostmonster. They all have 24-hour customer support, plus an easy to use cPanel.

Tell them to go through the process to sign up and when they’re done, they’ll want to call them and verify their account. They should be able to set up a username and password as well.

 

Step Two: Install WordPress

Okay, so they have purchased their host and you know whether you are building on a temporary URL (which will be an IP address, like this: http://32.34.556.43/~thedomain/) or the final URL, go ahead and install WordPress. Here are the basic instructions. Or, you can call tech support and they’ll walk you through how to do it.

1. Log into their account.
2. Click on cPanel (or, you may find where it says Install Popular Software)
3. When you find the WordPress icon, click on it.
4. Click on NEW INSTALL.
5. Follow the prompts and here’s the crucial difference in instructions. If you already have your Blogger blog attached to your custom domain (2.), you need to choose the temporary IP address. If you have a .blogspot.com address and bought your domain when you signed up for the account (1.), then you can build right on the domain from the get go.
6. The install script should spit you out a login URL, your username, and password.

“But wait? What if I bought the domain with yet another company and I own it, but it’s not attached to my Blogger blog right now and it’s not attached to my new hosting account?”

No problem. Just a couple extra steps for you (and a bit of patience).

1. Log into the place where your domain is owned.
2. Locate where you can manage your domain.
3. Locate where it says NAMESERVERS.
4. You’re going to change the nameservers to one of the following (IF you used one of the hosts I recommend).

NS1.WEBHOSTINGHUB.COM
NS2.WEBHOSTINGHUB.COM
NS1.BLUEHOST.COM
NS2.BLUEHOST.COM
NS1.HOSTMONSTER.COM
NS2.HOSTMONSTER.COM

Put BOTH nameservers that correspond to the host. Then you’ll have to wait between 4-12 hours and when the DNS has propagated, the WordPress site will be viewable.

 

Step Three: Install a Theme

Pick one and start designing! If you’re willing to pay for a theme, go with Genesis.

 

Step Four: Make sure your permalink structures match

What now? Permalinks. They are the URLS of each post that is on the website. So, on blogger, you will see that the posts probably look like this: http://myblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/post-name-separated-with-spaces.html

As you are getting the WordPress site designed, it’s important that you tell it to have the SAME structure as the blogger blog. Here’s how. (And yes, I know you haven’t actually moved the posts yet. That’s okay).

1. Go to Settings and Permalinks.
2. Choose custom structure.
3. Then type this in the field /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html/
4. Click save.

That .html is really important because blogger blogs have it on the end of their permalinks and WordPress doesn’t. If for some reason your blogger blog has the year, month, and day, you’ll need to add the /%monthday/ as well.

ONE IMPORTANT NOTE:

Blogger doesn’t like the word “a”. If they had a post like this: How to Play A Game, blogger probably changed the permalink to How-to-Play-Game.html. WordPress keeps the “a” in. So you will need to test these URLS once you finish this process and make changes if the backlinks aren’t working. Another problem arises when they have REALLY long Blogspot titles. Blogger will just chop off the end of the title and WordPress won’t. Changing URLs isn’t too hard once the site is live and you can see what links are giving you a 404. You can easily update the WordPress permalink to match by going into the post and clicking edit next to the permalink button.

 

Moving the website

Step Five: Creating Pages.

When you do the import, you only want to bring over your best. The migration won’t import the pages, so you’ll have to do that separately (by copying the html of each page and pasting it into the TEXT view of a new WordPress page).

Step Six: Import your blog

The best plugin to import the blog is the BLOGGER IMPORTER EXTENDED (the one in the WP tools dashboard isn’t as good).

1. Go to Plugins > Add New on your WordPress dashboard.
2. Type in Blogger Importer Extended.
3. It will ask you to install a plugin. Do so.
4. Once it’s installed and activated, hit start.
5. Check off “Keep Slugs” and if you want the plugin to preserve the blogger formatting, uncheck “Convert Formatting”.

This will only import your posts, pages, labels, and comments. If you want to import your widgets, you will have to do so manually with good ol’ fashioned copy and paste!

 

Cleaning up

Step Seven: Formatting text

Sometimes the text gets messed up (though when you uncheck preserve formatting, it does a decent job of removing all the extra blogger html tags in the code). Use the eraser button and T on a clipboard button on the second row of the toolbar.

Step Eight: Test your backlinks

Compare a few backlinks between the new blog and the old Blogger blog. Look for those URLS that might have the word “A” in them and see if they match. If they do not, you need to find that post on the new blog and edit the permalink.

1. To do that, go to Posts > All Posts
2. Find the post.
3. Click Quick Edit.
4. Where it says, slug, get rid of the a.
5. Click Update!

Step Nine: Install your basic plugins to keep your site functioning well

• Akismet
• Updraft
• SEO by Yoast
• JetPak
• Simple Social Icons
• ENews Extended
• Genesis Simple Edits
• Genesis 404
• Velvet Blues

Preserving the SEO: doing a redirect so people can find the site

So the new blog is all shiny and ready to go. Here’s the most important part. If you’re building on a temporary IP, you need to change that to be your custom domain. If it was a .blogspot.com address, you need to redirect it so it goes to the new site’s address.

Instructions for people who built the site on a temporary URL and not a custom domain.

–> Unhook the custom domain from Blogspot (only if applicable)

Go to the blogspot blog.

1. Settings > Publishing
2. X out the custom domain so it reverts back to the old blogspot address.
3. If it was a blogspot.com address, just skip this step and go to step eleven.

–> Point the custom domain to the new site

You’ll need to change the nameservers on that domain. Most domains for blogger are bought through GoDaddy so contact them and ask for instructions on how to change the nameservers. If they bought the domain somewhere else, you’ll need to get into their cPanel and change the nameservers to their current host. A nameserver is just an address like this: NS1.Hostmonster.com. Each host provider has two or three nameservers and you can ask your host what theirs is (or look it up). I mentioned what the nameservers are for the three hosts I partner with up above in step 2. That’s what you’ll need to type in on GoDaddy (or where ever you bought the domain). Once you do that, it takes about 4 hours for it to transition.

Once it’s transitioned, here are the steps. Again, tech support for each host should be able to help.

1. Log into your WordPress site and go to Settings >General.
2. Change the Home and Site fields to the custom domain. At this point, your site will break! Don’t panic.
3. Close out the browser. Restart the browser and clear the cache.
4. Log back into your site. You should be in!
5. Now, you’ll need to update your URL’s. In order to do this, I use a plugin called Velvet Blues.
6. Install it.
7. Then go to the plugin settings page and where it asks for the old URL, type in the temporary URL (that string of numbers) and make sure you had a trailing slash at the end (like this –> http://23.435.234.23/~admin2/). Then type in the new URL (http://yourcustomdomain.com/). Hit that big button and it should update all your URL’s for you.

–> Install the Blogger to WordPress plugin on your new site!

This is the plugin that will help you with your 301 redirect.

Once the plugin is installed {on the new site}, go to the settings. It’s going to give you a big ol‘ bunch of code. Make sure you first check off all the boxes for the additional features and hit save. That code is to put on the Blogger blog so it redirects. Follow the instructions closely in the link above. You are essentially deleting theu template and replacing it with code. Always save the existing code in a sticky note or text edit file first!

One important note! Before you revert the template to classic, turn off your mobile theme in the template area of Blogger.

 

 

Instructions for people who built their site on their custom domain and simply need to redirect their old .blogspot.com address.

–> Install the Blogger to WordPress plugin on your new site!

This is the plugin that will help you with your 301 redirect.

Once the plugin is installed {on the new site}, go to the settings. It’s going to give you a big ol‘ bunch of code. Make sure you first check off all the boxes for the additional features and hit save. That code is to put on your Blogger blog so it redirects. Follow the instructions closely in the link above. You are essentially deleting the template and replacing it with code. Always save the existing code in a sticky note or text edit file first!

One important note! Before you revert the template to classic, turn off your mobile theme in the template area of Blogger.

 

 

A couple other thoughts:

Test the backlinks

Test a few backlinks from Facebook, Pinterest, etc. Make sure everything is redirecting properly. If it isn’t, you will need to update the permalink in WordPress.

1. To do that, go to Posts > All Posts
2. Find the post.
3. Click Quick Edit.
4. Where it says, slug, get rid of the a.
5. Click Update!

Do they have custom email address through Google apps?

Some people do (I’m not talking about myblog@gmail.com, I’m talking about info@myblog.com). If you move your domain over to another provider, your email will most likely be transferred over there. You need to check with your provider to make sure the zone file is set up correctly and then you can reconfigure your Outlook or MacMail accordingly.

If you want to keep your email at Google Apps, you are going to have to go into your new hosting account, and add Google’s MX records in order to keep your mail through Google.

Feedburner

Once it’s moved, log into their Feedburner account and change the original feed address so they don’t lose any subscribers. You can then easily embed a Feedburner widget on WordPress. Just go to Edit Feed Details and change the feed address to http://yourcustomurl.com/feed.

BlogLovin’

You’ll have to contact their tech support and ask them to update your account!

Intense Debate Commenting

This is the only commenting system that’s ever given me trouble during a migration. If you use Intense Debate on Blogger, try converting your comments to something like Disqus just the generic old Blogger comments first. THEN do the import.

Create a custom 404 page

This will help for any broken links you missed!

Good Luck!