How I Imported My Blog to WordPress
A couple of people have already asked me regarding the import of my blog from Blogger to WordPress and how easy or difficult it was. Therefore I thought it would be helpful for you guys if I outlined the steps I took.
I recently purchased my own domain and received a WordPress blog with my hosting package. When I tried to find out how I could import my Blogger posts there, this is the information I received from WordPress:
“Users of WordPress 2.2 and above can import from Blogger. Earlier versions cannot import from Blogger because “New Blogger” was released by Google, invalidating all the old importers. Only WordPress 2.2 and later has support for “New Blogger”.
If you haven’t already, you must be using New Blogger and a Google Account on Blogger. If you are still using Old Blogger, the importer will not work.
To start the importer, go to Manage → Import → Blogger and follow the directions.”
I did have the New Blogger, yet it was an older version of WordPress that I received with my package (of course! I got the 2.1.0 version), and therefore I couldn’t just automatically import my Blogger posts there.
Therefore what I did was, I opened a “dummy” account on wordpress.com (which of course had to be the most recent version) and imported my posts from Blogger to that dummy account. The only problem I experienced in the import was that all the videos didn’t transfer. I had to add them all back manually. Also I had to add a 5 pixels margin left and bottom to all my pics which now appeared almost on top of the text in the posts.
Then I exported all the posts from the “dummy” WordPress account to my real WordPress account by going to: Manage → Export → Download Export File. I then logged in to my real account and clicked Manage → Import → WordPress. There you’ll need to upload the export file. The only problem I experienced in this process was that the names of those who commented did not transfer for some reason. I needed to dig into the code and fix that. I also needed to categorize all my posts now because they were not categorized in Blogger.
I then redirected my old site to my new site. In order to do that, follow these directions.
All in all the process was not as easy as it could be, I think. I am not sure if the problems I experienced were only specific to my case or that they happen quite frequently, but I think that both companies could try to work harder at making the whole transition a lot smoother. There is no reason for me to go and have to manually change stuff myself.
I must add one thing before I finish. I did enjoy my time on Blogger and probably would not have left it if it wasn’t necessary. Even though I have heard some people complain about it, I found its platform very user friendly and intuitive.
I hope this post was helpful and will make your import a bit smoother than what I experienced.
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:24 am
great post – you are turning into a real geek
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:11 am
I was always a geek, my friend
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:10 pm
So many people ask me how to do this. Your post can save them a lot of time! Thanks for the education
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Ava, glad to be helpful!
July 24th, 2007 at 1:51 am
ah… I see now. any news on if anybody is working on a software non-browser Microsoft word version of blogging software… something real stable is my main beef. something like dream-weaver that can port to multiple blog platforms would revolutionize the industry.
….speaking of such… I have a story!
when I was in high-school my friends and I all had BBS. We would use the dial up modems to communicate with each other. mostly to showcase ASCII art and trade pirated video games. I remember one day I was talking to some friends about what the next new thing in BBS would be. We would talk about how it was too bad that we couldn’t run a BBS in a mouse based system. then one of my friends said they were working on something. I said “what is it called?” He said “World War III… or WWW”. I’m not sure if this is true or not… but I have this theory that what he was referring to was the World Wide Web and browsers. I don’t know for sure… but it was in my head at the time that Mosaic was developing. I knew I wanted to BBS in a Mac like environment. I wasn’t a programmer though… point is. Somebody out there is going to design something real intuitive for Blogging. and when they do… they are going to make a lot of money. It is in all are heads… who is gonna do it? Necessity is the mother of all invention.
So tell me people? Is this product already out there? Or is this what WordPress already is? Or is this what WordPress has the pretension of being?
July 24th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
As I said in my post Noah, I didn’t find WordPress to be all that user friendly nor intuitive. I do think that such an intuitive service that will port to multiple blog platforms is definitely needed.
August 3rd, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Thanks for your post. I bookmarked it, since I am also thinking about moving from blogger using wordpress.
August 3rd, 2007 at 2:40 pm
My pleasure Simon.
Hope it makes the process smoother for you.
August 20th, 2007 at 5:06 am
I didn’ know you know how to code…. I’m impressed, again
August 20th, 2007 at 5:36 am
Thanks Yosi!
And thanks for the link on your blog!
October 26th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
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August 18th, 2009 at 2:08 am
Wow. great post. I am having a hard time importing my post from my blogger account to wordpress. It seems that using this simple method you have provided it will be easy and time saving… Thanks man for the share..
August 18th, 2009 at 6:08 am
Wow. great post. I am having a hard time importing my post from my blogger account to wordpress. It seems that using this simple method you have provided it will be easy and time saving… Thanks man for the share..