Blogger Sucks. Wanna Move to WordPress?

December 14, 2007 | By Lorelle VanFossen | Filed Under Blog News, Blog Software, Featured, Features, Google, Guides and Tutorials, WordPress

I’m seeing a lot of “Blogger sucks” posts in my feeds as many are frustrated with the new login system and inability to leave links in comments from non-Blogger/Blogspot blogs, as well as other whines and gripes about the new changes to the blogging platform.

Here is a step-by-step instruction to help you move to or , the free blog hosting service.

Where Do You Want to Go?

You must first decide whether or not it is time to move from a free hosted site to a self-hosted site for your blog.

If you’ve been blogging for a while and you want more control over your blog’s design and flexibility, then I recommend you choose to “rent space” with a web host for a monthly fee and install the full version of WordPress.

If you are happy with free and don’t want to control every detail on your blog, then choose the free blog hosting service, , and join almost 2 million other happy bloggers and a fascinating and diverse community using the latest cutting edge WordPress version.

Then either install WordPress on your self-hosted site or sign-up for a free blog from .

To set up a self-hosted version, see the requirements for a web host, information on hosting WordPress, what to do before you install WordPress, and how to install WordPress. You can also have WordPress installed for you for free by a team of volunteers who are experts in installing WordPress.

Before beginning, I recommend that you backup your Blogger/Blogspot blog and export it as an XML file as another backup, just in case.

Step-by-Step Instructions for Moving From Blogger to WordPress

  1. Stop and Look at Your New Blog: When the blog is set up, look at the blog to see the first post, a Hello from Mr. WordPress with one comment. This is the default Theme and look of your blog.
  2. Basic Set Up: Log into your WordPress Administration Panels and do the following:
    • Go to Manage > Posts panel and delete the first post.
    • Go to Comments and delete the first comment.
    • Go to Users/Profile and enter in the information about you in the appropriate forms.
    • Go to Options and enter information about your blog in the appropriate forms.
  3. Import for Blogger: Go to Manage > Import to begin the import process for Blogger. All post content, comments, and categories are imported.
  4. Fix Images: Images, unfortunately, are now hotlinked to your Blogger/Blogspot site which Blogger will not allow. Images need to be uploaded again to your new WordPress blog.

    In the full version of WordPress, there are a variety of WordPress Plugins for images, photographs, and graphics to speed up the process of uploading multiple images. Once uploaded, you can use the fast search and replace in WordPress MySQL database method to change the URL to the images to their new address, however, WordPress may sort and date the URL to your images, so do this with extreme care and backup first.

    WordPress.com only permits uploading one image at a time, a tedious and time-consuming activity, so consider adding only the images you really want and need to minimize the effort. Edit each post with the image in it, uploading the image at that time and changing the image location to the new one.

  5. Test your blog: View it and move around viewing the different posts, categories, archives, search, and other pageviews. Did everything work?
  6. Fix Intrasite Links: Intrasite links, links from one blog post to another on your blog, will now send readers to your Blogger blog. If using the full version of WordPress, you can use the search and replace in WordPress MySQL database method for fast changing of the links. WordPress.com bloggers must change these manually or let them go.
  7. Select Your Blog’s New Look: Now, go to Presentation and start experimenting with various WordPress Themes. If you are using the self-hosted version, check out the WordPress Theme Viewer to start.
  8. Setup Your Blogroll: Go to Blogroll/Bookmarks and edit and change the blogroll to add your favorite blogs.
  9. Alert Your Blogger Fans of Your Move: On your old Blogger/Blogspot blog, leave a “forwarding address” in a last post. Alert those on your blogroll, favorite fans, and others about the new location.
  10. Activate Comment Spam Protection: If you haven’t, activate or choose another comment spam fighting tool.
  11. Be Patient Waiting for PageRank: As for PageRank and SEO, don’t worry. You may get better and faster results with WordPress, but be patient. It takes a few days to months to catch up. Just keep blogging.
  12. Start Playing With WordPress: Start playing around with your new WordPress blog. Consider adding WordPress Plugins for full versions of WordPress from the WordPress Plugin Directory and the WordPress Plugins Database. Start playing with WordPress.com Widgets or WordPress Widgets for your full version.

    13. It’s important to use the Default WordPress Theme during the Import process and do not activate any WordPress Plugins until after the import process is complete. This keeps the process simple and restricts tracking down bugs, flaws, or mistakes in the process only to the imported content and not the Theme or Plugins.

    Learning More About WordPress

    Your first stop to learning more about WordPress is the , the online manual for WordPress Users.

    You can also read the following to learn more about using and tweaking your WordPress Blog:

    WordPress Help and Support

    To get help using WordPress, see:

    More on Moving from Blogger to WordPress

    For more information on moving from Blogger to WordPress see the following, though not all instructions and tips may apply to the latest version of WordPress or Blogger. Also, be warned that many who switch to a new self-hosted site take advantage of money-making opportunities with their new host for promoting their services. Take time to research your own hosting service properly.


    About the author: The author of Lorelle on WordPress, as well as several other blogs, Lorelle VanFossen has been blogging in one fashion or another for over 14 years, covering travel, nature and travel photography, web design, web theory and development, blogging, and WordPress extensively as web technologies developed. Lorelle is also the author of the fast-selling book, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging, available in the new Blog Herald Bookstore.

    © Copyright 2007 The Blog Herald | Submit post to Blogosphere News | More articles by Lorelle VanFossen


    Comments

    26 Responses to “Blogger Sucks. Wanna Move to WordPress?”

    1. sir jorge on December 14th, 2007 7:14 pm

      i need to buy a domain name and move my blogs…it’s not easy

    2. Ravi on December 14th, 2007 10:13 pm

      Sir Jorge, aren’t you the one I remember boasting about 7 blogs? If so, why aren’t you already on Wordpress?

    3. Viagem à Volta Da Blogosfera 15-12-2007 | Blog | Trabalhar a partir de casa | Programas grátis | Euromilhões | Dinheiro on December 15th, 2007 7:35 am

      [...] Blogger Sucks. Wanna Move to Wordpress? – Aprende aqui como transferir o teu blog do Blogger para o wordpress. Artigo bastante completo. Muito bom. [...]

    4. Blogger sucks! on December 15th, 2007 9:03 pm

      [...] Click here to check out the post. [...]

    5. dinsan on December 16th, 2007 12:58 am

      The issue of commenters link has been corrected Lorelle…
      I’ve posted the news on my blog. :)

    6. Lorelle VanFossen on December 16th, 2007 10:56 am

      @dinsan:

      I’m glad the issue with comments has been corrected. Many are still frustrated with other features - and non-features - and the drain from Blogger/Blogspot, especially as it is still so associated with sploggers and scrapers, continues. Google will have to do a lot more, many believe, to improve its reputation.

      Luckily, there’s choices. ;)

    7. seo bristol on December 16th, 2007 11:57 am

      This is the most informative site to enable the transition from Blogger to Wordpress - Thanks for such a comprehensive resource.
      If you’re reading this and wondering whther it’s time to move to Wordpress - the answer is yes; you won’t regret it.

    8. Weekly Digest: Back on the Farm, Improving Your Blog Series, WordPress Podcast Reporter, and More « Lorelle on WordPress on December 17th, 2007 1:04 am

      [...] Blogger Sucks. Wanna Move to WordPress? I’ve been reading about many wanting out of Blogger and deciding to move to WordPress. It’s very easy to move and I offer a step-by-step guide to help you manage your move. [...]

    9. Lin on December 17th, 2007 8:03 pm

      I had my blogger blog moved over to Wordpress a week or so ago thanks to Snoskred. Not having any understanding of the background hosting stuff, having Snoskred make the move for me was the best thing I could have ever done.

      I still have to move my images over, but I’ll get that done soon enough. I love Wordpress! ;)

    10. Moving Your Blog from Blogger to Wordpress on December 17th, 2007 11:48 pm

      [...] Blog Herold just published a great tutorial on moving your blog from Blogger over to Wordpress. The tutorial is very straight forward and easy to [...]

    11. Didja Hear? | Live at the KitKat Lounge on December 19th, 2007 10:19 pm

      [...] people seem to think that Blogger sucks.  My understanding is that the new log in issue protocol is driving folks crazy.  Who [...]

    12. Sheri Larsen on December 20th, 2007 9:02 pm

      I wish you had written this a couple of weeks earlier! Even though I moved from Wordpress.com to using Wordpress on my own domain this post would have been very helpful. I just published a post on the experience - including a section linking to the best plugins I found for setting up a new Wordpress blog.

    13. WordPress Wednesday News: Mandatory WordPress Security Release, Sneak Previews of WordPress 2.4, Hoodies, Vote for WordPress, Moving to WordPress, Custom Fields, and More : The Blog Herald on January 3rd, 2008 4:21 am

      [...] Chart Comparing WordPress and Blogspot: Techbays offers a chart comparing WordPress and Blogspot features, similarities, and differences. Want to move? [...]

    14. Boy on January 20th, 2008 1:51 pm

      hi. i’m stuck at no.2 because step no. 3, Import for Blogger: Go to Manage > Import to begin the import process for Blogger. All post content, comments, and categories are imported.

      DOES NOT WORK. Iam using the newest wordpress 2.3.2, and i am trying to access blogger, i granted permission to access in blogger using my gmail account which is under the blogger blogspot account, but wordpress is returning an error that it has trouble signing in . i cleared wp, but when i try again, still the same error.

      why is this so?

    15. Lorelle VanFossen on January 20th, 2008 5:11 pm

      @Boy:

      Have you asked this question in the WordPress Support Forums. They are the best resource for hands-on help on this. The problem could e with your installation, directory permissions, or the import file., or many things. They can walk you through the process step by step.

      Good luck.

    16. Blog Bloke on February 19th, 2008 10:39 pm

      I’ve discovered the perfect way to move your Blogger blog over to Wordpress, automatically redirect your old posts and not lose your Google juice either.

    17. Sunday Links 11 - Moving from Blogger to WordPress | Earn Blogger on March 23rd, 2008 10:49 am

      [...] Herald has a nice “Step-by-Step tutorial for Moving From Blogger to WordPress“. Read the instructions carefully and follow them. I am sure that you are going to say - [...]

    18. Dunn on March 26th, 2008 12:03 am

      I had moved my blog from blogger to wp. Had imported all the post. Everything looks fine in my home page. But when I clicked the individual post, it viewed with my old blogger layout instead the new wp. How do I fix this? Even the transfer team from my hosting dont know how to fix this.

    19. Lorelle VanFossen on March 26th, 2008 6:34 am

      Have you sought help in the WordPress Support Forums? That is the spot to get individual assistance with issues like these.

      If you switched from Blogger to WordPress, and brought the HTML that created the look of your Blogger blog with you, it might look like the old design. Since I don’t have any more information than that to work with, your best bet is to ask on the WordPress Support Forum, including all the information on how the transfer went of the design elements.

      And if you want a different design, then go to the Presentation or Design panel and change the WordPress Theme. Takes seconds. If that fixes it, then it’s the Theme that is the issue. If it doesn’t, then what is probably happening is that you didn’t change the links from Blogger to the new site during the transfer so any time you link within a post to another, it takes you back to the Blogger site.

      Good luck with it. I’m sure the folks on the WordPress Support Forum can help.

    20. Aseem Kishore on March 26th, 2008 9:23 am

      This is very good, but if you can’t get the redirection to work, you have to try something else. I moved from Blogger to Wordpress and had to do it differently, so read my post on it also if this didn’t work for you.

    21. Cleaning Blogspot Spam: Is Google Responding to Public Pressure? : The Blog Herald on April 1st, 2008 8:31 am

      [...] recently reporting that they’d cleared out more than 800,000 spam blogs. As more and more Blogger and Blogspot bloggers are moving to WordPress and WordPress.com, maybe Google is feeling the heat a [...]

    22. Jirel on April 4th, 2008 12:51 am

      But, Google may penalize for the same contents in two blogs. No? Is there any ideas to prevent this?
      I am also thinking of moving to self-hosted WP with my current blog of about 7 month old.

    23. Window Shopping is Hopping! « Window Shopping on May 15th, 2008 7:47 pm

      [...] in WordPress, in Bloggerland you can’t just export all your posts if you want to move with one click and a bit of fiddling (Like I did for this Window Shopping [...]

    24. suicidalsam on May 19th, 2008 3:14 pm

      blogger is not the best blogging platform for SEO. I have a blogger blog and its been a year but it still gets just 200 visitors. I have a wordpress blog to and its not even been 6 months and it gets 1000 visitors daily.

      I will be using your tutorial to move the blogger blog to wordpress.

    25. How To Move From Blogger To Self-Hosted WordPress on June 13th, 2008 10:55 pm

      [...] Blogger Sucks. Wanna Move to WordPress? - Written by Lorelle VanFossen from blogherald.com on December 14th, 2007. [...]

    26. Meroal » Blog Archive » WordPress on July 3rd, 2008 5:25 am

      [...] did copy and paste my blogger posts in, and then AFTER I was finished, I discovered this little gem.  So, if you are holding back to blogger because you are worried about how to migrate your posts, [...]

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