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Blogger Sucks. Wanna Move to WordPress?
The Blog Herald
The Blog Herald

Blogger Sucks. Wanna Move to WordPress?

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December 14, 2007

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 WordPress or WordPress.com, 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, WordPress.com, 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 WordPress.com.

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.

See Also
Sites to Get Free News-Related Images

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 Akismet 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.

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.

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.

The author of Lorelle on WordPress and the fast-selling book, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging, as well as several other blogs, Lorelle VanFossen has been blogging for over 15 years, covering blogging, WordPress, travel, nature and travel photography, web design, web theory and development extensively as web technologies developed.

View Comments (51)

  • @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. ;)

  • 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.

  • 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! ;)

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • I’ve used almost all of the blogging utilities out there and WordPress is easily the best.

    One of the best aspects of WordPress is the large quantity of plugins that allow you to customize your site.

    I don’t think blogger is even in the same league.

  • Because I am a total rookie, I found wordpress to be somewhat on the intimidating side but I did finally get a blog up and working. Actually the install is very simple, it’s finding a theme that works with it once you start adding plugins.

    For a “free” blog, it can’t be beat. I will say I wouldn’t be happy long if I got a free one on wordpress, it is much nicer on your own host.

    And for the site owner, I love your note at the bottom. It is a pet peeve of mine to get pingbacks and trackbacks with pieces of my post. I really don’t call them comments.

    Anyway, I like your site with the instructions. I feel sure your site will be a help to many, one of few I find when surfing that is worth bookmarking.

  • Thank you for the tip! I’m using Blurb’s blog-to-book service, which only allows WordPress at the moment, and this made my day.
    Thanks again. :)

  • Thanks- Blogger deleted 11 months of my notes about my kids. I now hate them and will never say a nice thing about them…. I knew I should have changed sooner. I will always regret not using wordpress sooner.

    Thanks for this – it was very helpful !

  • This is a really good guide. The only thing I’d suggest that you use Blogger’s 301 in order to make sure your Google juice is transferred to the new domain. Here’s a quick guide I put together yesterday as a compliment to your guide for those that want to move from blogger to wordpress whiling preserving SEO. And yes, I totally agree with the title of your post, Blogger does indeed suck. :)

  • Messed up my first comment, here we go again:

    This is a really good guide. The only thing I’d suggest that you use Blogger’s 301 in order to make sure your Google juice is transferred to the new domain. Here’s a quick guide I put together yesterday as a compliment to your guide for those that want to move from blogger to wordpress while preserving SEO. And yes, I totally agree with the title of your post, Blogger does indeed suck. :)

  • The suggestion to back up the existing site with an XML file before migrating from Blogger to WordPress is a good one. Retaining a local copy provides further protection in case something goes wrong on the hosting server. You can never have too many backups it seems. ;) With practice the entire process is quite manageable.

  • Blogger is very very bad service it will screwed you. you will found robbed when they delete your blog any day, when it get popularity. Instead use cheap webhosting initially if blog required more space and bandwidth upgrade package. You can use popular webhost worldwide or if having trouble related to credit card search for local webhost in your country with local webhost you can pay by check or any local method. This way you can backup you files or blog monthly so you can not loose data and restore blog anythime on same company or other company if you change your webhosting company.

  • could someone explain why my importing page just seem stuck? I’m exporting from Blogger (not sure about version, but created it back in 2008) to wordpress self-hosted. all is very simple but the posts just haven’t shifted from showing 5 out of 100.

    thanks

  • Both blogging service are great and most popular in bloggers. In my opinion if you are doing all on sub-domain only then blogger is best meanwhile it is best to customize theme and widgets to blog. If you are hosting your blog for lifetime then wordpress win my heart. WordPress support PHP, CSS, Javascript. In wordpress there are Search engine friendly plugins which helps to improve you site.

  • My only problem with wordpress.com would be you can’t put your own ads as compared to blogspot. Plus you have to pay if you want your own domain.

    I do find the designs are so much better in wordpress.com compared to blogger.

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