Moving from Blogger to WordPress? You can read in this post what you should know before making any decision.
Now that you have hopefully found out whether Blogger is good enough for you or you need WordPress, it is time to move on!
This article will take a look at the practical part: how to actually transfer all of your blog posts into your shiny new WordPress installation and how to get rid of the problems that come with this.
Before digging into it, have you already thought about a hosting service for your new site? I’ve a dedicate server with HostGator, but you may want to take a look also at other hosting services. If you want to evaluate other alternatives, you can read a SiteGround review.
How To Import Your Blogger Blog Posts
Fortunately no – you don’t have to open up each and every post and copy/paste its content into WordPress. Importing your posts is actually the easy bit.
Here are the steps you have to follow to migrate your posts to WordPress:
- First you need to install the “Blogger Importer” plug-in (download link)
- If you’ve bought a custom domain, you should remove it from your Blogger account
- Then you need to upload this PHP file to your WordPress’ theme directory (wp-content/themes/YOUR THEME NAME/)
- After that you need to revert your Blogger blog to the classic template
- Then scroll down to “Edit Template HTML” and paste that HTML code
- Now you have to find and replace all “http://www.yourdomainname.com” instances with the URL of your new WordPress blog
Alternatively here is video tutorial to show you how to that:
Setting The Permalink Structure
Now that you have finished with importing the blog posts, you need to take care of another important aspect. That is namely your blog’s link structure. You probably know what that structure in Blogger-powered blogs is but just in case:
http://BLOG NAME.blogspot.com/YEAR/MONTH/BLOG POST.html
As you can see, the date of the post stands before the actual permalink. This might not look bad for the visitor, but it isn’t ideal when it comes to search engines.
In Google’s eyes the more emphasize you’d like to put on a keyword, the closer that keyword should be to the beginning of the article, the headline or the URL.
That’s not what we have in the above example. What Google sees as more important in that Blogspot URL is the date of the post, which is obviously not what we need.
To fix this, you need to open up your WordPress dashboard, scroll down to “Settings” –> “Permalinks”, choose “Post Name” (http://reviewzntips.com/sample-post/):
How to Fix the Broken Links
One very annoying problem that occurs after importing your blog posts is that not one of your internal links will work.
Fortunately (once again!), there is a pretty neat plugin that will do most of the hard work for you. The tool is Broken Link Checker (click here to download directly the version 1.10.10).
Whenever you sign in to your WordPress dashboard, you just need to check if there are broken links. The plugin does all the work and inform you about any dead links found. The good thing is you don’t have to edit each instance of the same link, since the changes apply to all identical URLs.
How and Why You Should Generate Post Thumbnails
Post thumbnails are used by all those plugins, dedicated to showing a list of related, recent, popular, etc. kind of articles either in your sidebar or under your blog posts.
Having one (or all three) of those plugins is a great way to keep visitors just a little longer on your site.
Allowing thumbnails to be shown generally improves click-through rates, since images are a far better way to catch one’s attention than simply using plain text.
The problem with moving from Blogger to WordPress is that although your images will still be there, no thumbnails will be assigned to them hence the widgets won’t be able to display them.
Fixing the problem however is quite an easy task!
The only tool you need is Auto Post Thumbnails. Once you install it, you simply go to your WordPress dashboard –> Settings –> Auto Post Thumbnails –> Generate Thumbnails.
The rest of the process is entirely automated.
Moving From Blogger to WordPress…It’s Done!
Now that you followed the above steps, you are pretty much done.
What you need now are some great plugins to lighten up your WordPress blog!
Did you have problems when moving from Blogger to WordPress?
Did you have any problems with the above-mentioned steps?
Please leave your views and share the post, if you liked it!
Hey Thanks a lot for this post. I have a question for you. Let us suppose I have 200 articles into blogger then is it possible to import few articles to wordpress? Please help
Hi Abhiskek,
why would you want to import just a few articles from Blogger to WordPress?
Anyway, if it’s just a few, the easiest way is to do it manually.
Hey Erik… Thanks for your reply.. I will do it manually.. Let me tell you that your seo is very good as I got to see your blog in Google on a very highly competitive keyword.. Keep doing the good work
Thanks Abhiskek,
that’s really a good news! 🙂
Which keywords in particular?
Nice post Erik . Very catchy post with easy content
Is there a plug in that fixes broken hyper links in pages and posts?
“Broken Link Checker” plugin, but I’ve mentioned that in the post, Anjali. 😉
Hey Erik Thank You Very Much for shared helpful knowledge about Blogger to WordPress Transfer and you are explained very well. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Asif,
good to hear you enjoyed the reading.
Thanks for commenting.
I did the opposite. I went from WordPress to Blogger. It went well, excepting all of those images that I had to fix! That was a real time sucker!
Hi Ginae,
I think this is the first time I hear of someone moving from WordPress to Blogger.
You surely have valid reasons,
Happy to hear you managed to do that. You should write a guide, based on your experience! 🙂
I am blogging on blogger. I found it easy but somewhere it does not facilitate us as much as I want. How can we increase number of post showing in home page?
In your Blogger dashboard, click on “settings”, then “posts and comments”, then “show at most” – add here the number of posts you want to have displayed on your homepage.
Cheers, Anupriya!
Hi Erik,
This is indeed an informative post.
How nice it would have been I read this few years back. One of my friends did this migration for me, sad to say on the run I lost all my friend’s amazing comments on the transit.
And of course some of the links are still in a broken condition! And every now and then I fix it. Thanks for sharing the information about the tool The Broken Link Checker. I will try this plugin to do some link fxing.
Thanks a lot for this. 🙂
May you have a great time of sharing and caring.
Happy vacations 🙂
Best
~ Phil
Hi Phil,
sorry to hear you had a harsh experience when moving from Blogger to WordPress.
Glad you liked the “Broken Links Checker” plugin mention, it works just fine to find broken links.
Thanks for commenting, and happy new year!
Hi Erik
Nice post there,
In any case, i need to ask that i likewise need to move blogger web journal to WordPress yet i need to utilize the same space name on word press , so what if i need to accomplish for the best possible redirection of presents on the new post urls so that the careful post url which is positioning in google ought to divert to identical post of word press ?
Hi Sania,
I need you to formulate again your question, because it’s really hard to understand…
Thanks!
Thanks for a great post.
I am facing an issue while moving from blogger to WP. I have quite a large blog with XML file of 100mb. I am able to export all posts to wp by using changes in php.ini at server and default-constants.php in wordpress. Buy the problem is that the dates of the posts imported is wrong. As for instance, I started my blog in 2013 and the dates of posts are 2009 and 2010. Please help me.
How many imported posts have wrong date, Chandan?
Can you change them in bulk?
Hi, thanks for your reply.
All the posts have wrong date. Total no. Of post s are around 10K.
The process you shown is really helpful but i have question if we move on to WordPress then their is any harm to the ranking of website?
I would say the contrary, WordPress is more SEO friendly, Abhishek.
Thanks Erik for your cordial suggestion. Whether the best is Blogger or WordPress, I think firstly we need to know all SEO techniques to promote our website. If we can apply all techniques, we shall be able to bring our site at the first page of Google. Please write more about SEO and I shall recommend the SEO beginners for learning SEO Tutorial by visiting my site.
You’re right, Jamshedul.
But I always believed in working hard on something that is really mine, like a self-hosted WordPress site.
With a Blogger blog, your property is owned by Google, and even if you purchase the domain name, your site will be still hosted at Google.
Hey Erik,
Awesome post for me. Because after reading your post, I able to move my blogger post to wordpress site.
Thanks for great guideline.
Good to hear that, Ronit.
Good luck with your site!
Thanks Erik for reply.
Hi Erik,
thank you for the great post! I am moving my blog from Blogger to WordPress right now and many of your tips helped on the way. But unfortunately, I’ve got a real issue: After the import from Blogger, all my posts come in the wrong order. The oldest come first, and the latest ones come last. So my first page consists of all the oldest posts from 2013. What to do? Please help me.
Mmmh….very strange, Hanne?
Have you followed the process as explained in the post, step by step?
I am joyful to read this post, its an attractive one. Thanks for this amazing post… I am always look for quality posts and articles and this is what I found here, I hope you will be adding more in future. Thanks..
Thanks Vinayak.
Very well Post @Erik.. gained much info about moving from blogger to wordpress especially learnt how to make permalink sturcture & how to fix broken links. i followed your step & guess what.. its working.. thanks a lot for sharing such a nice info.. looking forward for more updates for the same from your side.. !!
That’s so good to hear that, Martina.
This post served you well! 🙂
Hi Erik. I recently moved from blogger to wordpress. I have 2 problems. First my wed version has been redirected successfully but mobile version is not redirecting. Secondly in the comments imported my name is showing wordpress username (which i dont want to display) in place of my name. New comments are displaying my name but the one imported from blogger are showing wordpress username. Can you plz help?
Hi Megha.
For the first problem, can you elaborate more?
If you use a responsive WP theme (instead of 2 versions of the site – one mobile and one for desktop), that should not be a problem.
Great tips. I have had to move many websites from other platforms to WordPress. Some are much easier than others. Blogger to WordPress is a challenge but not nearly as hard as website that were build in Dreamweaver or years ago on Microsoft Frontpage.
Thanks for all the information. Keep up the great content Erik!
Hi Jesse,
thanks for sharing your experience with us.
Glad you enjoyed the post and I appreciate your kind words. 🙂
Hey Erik Thank You Very Much for shared accommodating information about Blogger to WordPress Transfer and you are clarified extremely well. A debt of gratitude is in order for sharing.
Glad to read you found the post useful, Jessica.
Wooo…. @Erik
I Have use a blogger and i need transfer Blogger to WordPress. This post is very helpful for me really it’s great post.
Regards – Raj Sharma
Thanks for the kind feedback, Raj.
mostly blogger started blog with blogspot and later on blogger decided to shifted his blog on WordPress. Your post will definitely help many blogger
Correct, Gaurav.
Thank you for this helpful walkthrough!!! Just followed all the things and have to say that’s a great tutorial. I have managed to migrate my blog of over 70 posts to a new one and not lost anything. Everything moved over fine.
Quick question – When I was moving my blogger blog to a WordPress theme that does not allow me to have my blog on my homepage or index file. The theme is designed for the blog to live in a separate folder [site[.]com/blog].
Is this putting my blog in a subfolder will mess up my SEO or blog feed? I do not have a feed burner account so am I correct to assume that my subscribers are using Atom for the feed? I’m confused and don’t want to lose rankings or feed subscribers.
Looking forward to getting your support.
Thanks..
Hi Vrushali ,
glad you found the post useful.
Many sites have blogs in sub-domain, no problem for that.
You can create a Feedburner account in seconds, check:
http://feedburner.google.com/
Hi Erik,
Actually, before reading your article I didn’t think this is impossible. But now I have to say WOW. Your instructions is really easy to follow. I will try to import one of my blog (Blogger) to my wordpress site recently. Thank you very much
Happy to hear that, Hai Tran. 🙂
Awesome article for all those who are willing to move from blogger to WordPress
Thanks for sharing this helpful video tutorial with details step by step guide.
Thanks for the feedback, Dev.
Great,
While migrate to wordpress, I have been facing issues with URL. your guide helped me a lot.
Thanks
Good to hear this post has served to its purpose, MuthuKumar.
Very nice information, one of my friends is looking to get his site moved. Would surely recommend your name
Thank you, Abhishek.
Decent post Erik . Extremely appealing post with simple substance
Is there a module that fixes softened hyper joins up pages and posts?
Hi Riya,
good to hear the positive feedback.
What’s the issue you are reporting when moving from blogger to WordPress?
You can also try automated migration. I moved my Blogger blog to WordPress using this tool: cms2cms
Perhaps you’ll find this useful.
Heard about it before, Zoriana.
Prices?
Hi i have face this problem please check my domain top header..
Code showing on main page of url top header.
Looks neat, right now, Shakil.
Thanks Erik
To share a important content with us i realy need this concept i want to move our blog into wordpress but i cant now how. thanks once again to solve to my issue
Have you ever moved your blog from Blogger to WordPress, Narinder?
You might also try this automated migration tool CMS2CMS. I’ve used this one and stayed satisfied with the result. The only thing you need is to provide URLs of your old and new website/blog.
Hello Erik,
My blogger website is ranking well in search engines and now I wanted to move my Blog to WordPress. So if I did so, are my ranking positions will get any effect? Please guide me with your suggestion.
If you do everything as suggested in this post, you won’t lose any rankings, Chakradhar.
Very Useful guide.
Thanks, man 🙂
Hey Erik,
nice post, i am going to move my blog from blogger to wordpress but i have lot of post more then 600 post it is possible to move all post without any lose and without affecting seo
Thank you for this post, Erik!! I am currently getting into wordpress for myself, and it definitely has its challenges! This post has brought me to a better understanding, I look forward to putting my new knowledge to the test as soon as possible!
Hey Erik,
I have a small question that will the blogspot link with year and month get fixed after I do so.
please reply if possible.
Thanks, Erik for the article I am to planning to get to WordPress from Blogger.
Thanks Erik! I’ve made the switch almost seamlessly from Blogger to WP. Everything imported except for two years from Blogger (2007-2009.) . Strange.