Moving and Migrating from Google Blogger FTP to WordPress
Google Mandate
Due to Google’s official mandate that Blogger’s FTP support will be discontinued, I had to research the most simple way for me to transfer my subdomains over to WordPress. I’m not a network administrator or PHP superstar, so it had to be somewhat simple.
Now Google official Voice of Fate says that only a half percent of all Blogger users use FTP on their domain name. That’s kinda misleading, especially since a percentage of blogspot accounts are dummy accounts that spammers set up in one minute or by amateur bloggers that set up and forget. It’s also misleading because the sheer number of comments and technical issues that people have been posting regarding migrating from FTP Blogger to WordPress is NUMEROUS to say the LEAST! Trust me!
So here is my quick guide migrating from Blogger to WordPress. I have a few assumptions: that you have a real webhosting company that allows easy WordPress installation, it is running a Linux server, you know how to use an FTP program like FileZilla or an FTP web interface provided to you by your webhost, and that you have patience and some computer knowledge of moving files around or editing files. Finally, these instructions can be used if you just transferred to a new webhost or are working on your current webhost. Okay without further ado:
1. You MUST make an EXACT copy of your site on a hard drive. You MUST retain all files and folder structure.
1a. If you bought a new webhost for easy WordPress installation, now is the time to upload everything to it.
2. Log in to your blogger account as usual, Goto Settings >> Publishing and then choose ‘Switch to: blogspot.com’ . ‘Save Settings’. It’s official: blogspot seems to be pointing to a copy of original site or else did the quickest copy in the world. Both exist at the same time.
3. Using your FTP client, go to the webhost that will be serving WordPress and delete the existing files inside your blog directory. You should already have uploaded_images and any attachments you made in your posts on your hardrive, right? Believe it or not, you have to delete everything in the subdomain folder server. Otherwise you run the risk of an 500 server error and you may spend 2 hours trying to reinstall WordPress. If you get 500 error anyway, remove the subdirectory from your webhost’s control panel , delete the FTP folder, and then recreate it in your webhost’s control panel .
4. Install WordPress on your domain. You need it to match your old domain exactly. Again, if you have a legitamate webhosting company, creating a WordPress database is easy. If not, I can’t help you.
6. Upload the ‘uploaded images’ and any attachment files from your hard drive to your sub-domain root.
7. Log in to your new WordPress blog e.g. www.yourdomain.com/blog/wp-admin/ and choose Tools >> Import. Then choose BLOGGER! Before you import, clean WordPress up- Delete the Page, Links, and Post first! If you are logged in Gmail, WP will see what BlogSpot sites you own. If it reads it, you should see something like 0/100 meaning you imported 0 out of 100 blogspot posts. You need to click Import and WAIT. If you have a small blog, you will have no problems with importing posts from Blogger. If you have 1000 posts or more, you will run into problems. When you get stuck, refresh your screen. The Import Magic Button changes to Continue. Click continue. You may have to repeat this 10 times. Make sure you get at least 96% of your posts and comments imported. Oh, and if you click the wrong blog (if you have more than one blogspot account), you are screwed. So please be careful. Once done, the button changes to “Set Authors”. No need to really do that now.
8. How to retain Blogger URLs in WordPress: Here is the direct link: http://justinsomnia.org/files/wp-maintain-blogger-permalinks-1.1.zip. You need to download the zip to your computer and then on the left side of WordPress’s menu “Add New Plugins” and Upload the Zip. Then Install and Activate. Feel free to check out Justin Watt’s site JustinSomnia.org if you have issues. There are over 100 comments from people just like me and you.
9. In WordPress go to Tools >> Maintain Blogger Permalinks and click the Justin’s ‘Maintain Blogger Permalinks’ button. This will rename your existing posts to be the same format as they were in your Blogger FTP blog, thus preserving the page rank and links to those posts that already exist. If you don’t do this, you lose all of your hard work and backlinks.
10. Still in WordPress, choose Settings >> Permalinks and click the Radio Button for ‘Custom Structure’ and enter the following in the box ‘/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html’ ( inside the apostrophes) – and click ’save changes’ this will ensure new posts follow the same naming convention as Blogger. Okay, this is an optional course of action. The other way for advanced users to to modify that naughty .htaccess file.
11. Speaking of that naughty .htaccess file, you need to add this into the first line (before it says WordPress):
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^(labels)/([^/]+)\.html$ category/$2/ [QSA,R=301,L]
</IfModule>
If you want Blogger’s Label.html files to be redirected and replaced with WordPress’s Catergories. If you don’t do this, your visitors will not be able to see the original files. There is also code for converting your Archive files, but I haven’t done that yet, and don’t want to put too much stress on my server. Here’s that code:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^archives/([0-9]{4})_([0-9]{1,2})_([0-9]{1,2})_archive.html$ $1/$2/ [QSA,R=301,L]
</IfModule>12. Do yourself a favor and do a quick spot check and make sure your posts looks right. If you corrupted something along the way, you need to start this whole process over.
13. Delete the blogspot copy from Blogger dashboard at some point.
14. Set up your WordPress blog by changing theme, getting WordPress plugins, and setting up your widgets. If you have never used WordPress before, this may be a challenge, but it’s better than being chained down to Google’s Blogger software.
Please post here if you can’t find where things are or have any questions. WordPress gets easier with experience.
Click Here for WordPress Marketing Guides
If you liked this article, check out these:
- Which is better: Blogger vs WordPress
- Transfer Webhost AND Migrate Blogger to WordPress
- Blogger Beta Review: BlogSpot 2.0 Free Blogger vs WordPress
- Insert Overstream into WordPress
- How to post a comment
- How Many Times Am I Allowed to Blog a Day?
- Why is Zipping Files So Hard for People?
- False Advertising: Unlimited Webhosting Scam
- WTF: Jump the Shark has JUMPED THE SHARK!
- Google Blogger FTP Custom Domain Problems
- Does social bookmarking generate traffic (Mixx, Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc)
- DailySkew Atom Updates
- Florida unemployment HELP and INFO to make money online from home
- Google says Microsoft would "take over the Internet"
- Blogger
- How to make money online (real)
- How To Cancel Facebook; Why I Quit Facebook
- A Notice to Spammers Who Post Comments Here
- Google World Domination: Google’s Motivations
- More DailySkew photos and funny pics
What up Tony and Damian…nice to see yall moved to WordPress…If yall are in any way interested, my blogs are begining to take shape too so check em out…yeah!
http://rawremembrance.blogspot.com/
http://dailyscrew.blogspot.com/
R.A.W.’s new blog has also got its first post
http://notesfromnowhereland.blogspot.com/
Mwahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for stopping by my blog, and welcome to the wordpress family :) I remember trying blogger way back before their agreement with google (so this was even prior to adsense!). I don’t know how they’re fairing nowadays since I’ve long since moved to wordpress. I just remember finding blogger to be pretty slow, with not a lot of ad-ons/plugins (which is a big deal for me). It seems crazy that they’d stop FTP support as well! What were they thinking?
Damian, thanks for writing this. I have been to the same spots around the world as you (Benfrain, justinsomnia, etc; your comments were helpful) and I am almost done with the migration. FWIW, I am actually glad Google did this; I had hacked my old classic FTP blogger template beyond recognition and it was time to put it to bed. Anyway, everything is running perfectly except for my old blogger labels and archives, and I was hoping you could clarify one final point for me.
First, I did things just a little differently than you: (1) I installed WordPress in its own subdirectory on the server, then (2) I imported all my old blogger posts (using justin’s permalink plug in, with the /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html structure), then (3) I upgraded to a premium WP template and formatted it a bit, and finally (4) I moved the new WP files into the root. Unintentionally, this left all my old archive and label .html files still on the web, so there are no 404s at all, search visitors just land on the old Blogger archive pages. This is OK, but not great.
If possible, I would like to redirect search visitors from the OLD blogger archive and label html pages to the NEW WP archives and category pages, which use the new, much nicer WP Thesis template rather than my blogger hack job.
Does your rewrite module do that, and if not, do you have any idea how I should try to edit the module so it would? I suppose I could do a redirect to the new home page for those old urls, but I’d rather not (and for the moment, I’m not even sure how to do it).
Also, what do you think about just putting some “no follow” “no index” tags in the head of the old blogger blog rather than deleting it?
Cheers!
Hello my friend, the best way to redirect is to change your HTACCESS file in conjunction with the Permalinks radio button.
I assume you know how to edit or make the HTACCESS file?
I have NOT been able to transfer BOTH the archives AND Labels, however, as it seems if I use Justin’s rewrite, I get a HTACCESS loop error and my GoDaddy server crashes. However that may be a GodDaddy thing, so you can try it.
I chose to redirect the Cats by editing the HTACCESS file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^(labels)/([^/]+)\.html$ category/$2/ [QSA,R=301,L]
plus the WP custom structure is /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
However, if you want to try and get the Archives *and* Cats, you can TRY and use Justin’s method of
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{1,2})/([^/]+)\.html$ $1/$2/$3/ [QSA,R=301,L]
and Permalink of %year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/ (or radio button “Month and name”) [Note the difference is there is no html]
Again, my server can’t handle it, so I chose to use the method to keep my Cats, since the Archive searches are mostly pic collectors and I have a great 401 page that has a bunch of similar selections and adsense.
Of course, if you moved everything around into different directories you MAY have to edit your HTACCESS file anyway to redirect, or perhaps check your CPanel with your webhosting company to see how easier redirects. (I’m having a bit of a problem visualizing how much of a mess you’ve made :-) ).
As for your final question, yes the nofollow and no index tags should work for the old blog. Keep in mind the jury is still out on if Google really does officially penalize duplicated content. I think at WORST if you have two of the same posts, they will pick the one with the higher page rank or “relevancy” and not display both. MAYBE. So it may be much ado about nothing, but for me, I wouldn’t have two of the same websites up with the same content, but I have no logical basis for it. :-)
Brothers too, it seems! What a pain this is. I loved your adaptation of the Hitler vid.
I’m getting all my posts fixed up, but it looks like the WP import tool didn’t pick up all my reader comments, which is a total drag.
As far as the redirects go, I can edit with htaccess easily enough, so I copied the your rewrite code for the archives into htaccess (I use Go Daddy too), but still no joy after 24 hours. I would have been happier if my server crashed, at least I would have seen SOMETHING happen.
Do you think I need to delete/disable justin’s plug in? Or remove his plug in code from htaccess altogether? Also, for cats and tags, did you mean that I need to insert them into the custom structure fields too, or in place of what’s there for his plug in, or the two fields below that? There are a ton of rewrite codes floating around the web, and people have said sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. For me, so far, they don’t! I am going to check out Justin’s site too, and see what he has to say.
This will be it on the Q’s. Hopefully I will find a few good answers, and then I will come back here and put them up in a new comment.
Along those lines, I did find a neat WP plug in that automatically does 301 redirects. I would rather go through htaccess because it means better performance for the 5 people/month that get lost and manage to land on my site ;-) but as a last resort I may give it a shot. It’s on urbangiraffe.com and it’s called, appropriately enough, “Redirection”. BTW, you should consider adding a “subscribe to comments” plug in, you can find it here:
http://txfx.net/wordpress-plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
Cheers Damian!
Thanks..I always wanted that comment follow-up plugin but always forget about it when I’m online. You’d think WordPress would have put that in their default code by now…How are you checking to see if it really redirects? Check Justin again and try to follow his steps. I think you may have got in too deep with the move and created a unique situation for yourself!! So hopefully you can post a resolution for anyone else out there who dug a hole like this. :-)
OK Damian, I have it working now. I also use Go Daddy, and Justin’s “all in one” code also caused my server to crash, so it looks like a Go Daddy thing. I love Go Daddy though, the service is great, and this is no reason to switch (believe it or not, I also host over at Network Solutions)
As for the fix: First, I did not put the rewrite code in the right spot in htaccess, it needs to go at the very top of htaccess, before anything else. You were clear about this but I missed it.
Second, courtesy of reading the hundreds of comments on justinsomnia’s “maintaining blogger permalinks” post, I added http:mysite.com/ to the labels rewrite code and “forced” the redirect. The code I used is this: RewriteRule ^(labels)/([^/]+)\.html$ http:mysite.com/category/$2/ [QSA,R=301,L].
Note that I left out the wwww. in mysite.com. WordPress doesn’t use absolute urls. I’m not sure whether this is good or bad, it just is, so that’s what I did.
For some reason, I was unable to redirect my archives through htaccess the same way, but it was not for wont of trying. You name a code combination, and I tried it. (btw, the code you posted above seems to work for almost everyone, and it’s what “everyone” is using).
Ultimately, I used the “Redirect” plug in for WordPress from urban giraffes (the link for that is in my comment above) and it 301 redirected all my archive files perfectly and flawlessly. Note: I did have to delete ALL the old blogger archive.html files from my file manager on Go Daddy for it to work.
Lessons? There is no reason to set up a dummy WordPress blog anywhere, just move your blog to blogspot.com, download wordpress, download the permalink plug in and import your files using the import utility. The Blogger to WordPress migration process is actually very simple and straightforward, especially if you have a smallish blog, in terms of posts/comments. Nobody reading thise comments should be intimidated, AND you can confidently follow them – you will get a perfect result.
Furthermore, I have been all over the web, and these instructions for migrating FTP blogger blogs to wordpress are state of the art right now. One thing I would add though: In my opinion, deleting your old blogger blog is not necessary, just go back into the template and insert these no index tags in the head:
This completes the whole process. It tells all the bots, including the all important G and fast growing Bing!, to (1) no longer index the old pages, and (2) to follow the permalink structure to the new pages. This makes the old blog “inaccessible” to the bots, effectively sealing it off from an SEO perspective, but leaves all your files and comments intact in case you need them in the future. Plus, if you’re into revenge, it has the added benefit of using up space on Google’s servers!
Sorry, the No Index, No Follow tags are (you’ll need to add the opening and closing html operators):
META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX, FOLLOW”/
META NAME=”GOOGLEBOT” CONTENT=”NOINDEX, FOLLOW”/
Salut!