Moving your website/blog from WordPress to Blogger is a matter of courage and some meticulous work. Not many people recommend it, as they say that Google will kill Blogger at the end. However, I dared to move my blog/website from WordPress to Blogger.
I trust Google and Blogger as a platform. Yes, there are pros and cons of Blogger as a blogging platform. Though the WordPress and Blogger are not that different in user interface, bloggers of today want SEO plugins and/or functionalities in the dashboard. In my case, I have found ways to overcome the negative sides, especially the difficulties in doing technical SEO of Blogger-based websites.
How to Move from WordPress to Blogger
There can be many ways of moving one's blog/website from WordPress to Blogger. Here, I will share the methods that I used for converting my WordPress-based blog to Blogger-based blog.
- Step 1. Export the XML contents from WordPress
- Step 2. Import the XML contents to Blogger
- Step 3. Pruning the posts/content
- Step 4. Uploading images
- Step 5. Adding 301 redirects manually
- Step 6. Adding Custom Domain in Blogger Site
- Step 7. Final Steps
Step 1. Export the XML contents from WordPress
I used 'WordPress to Blogger' plugin to export my blog posts in a XML file. Thankfully, the plugin worked despite the fact that it was not tested to work with the latest version of the WordPress.
In case of posts, I had to select the options so that all categories and tags would be converted to labels in Blogger. Selecting these was apparently a precondition for the export to work well. In case of the pages, I downloaded a separate XML file.
Step 2. Import the XML contents to Blogger
In the Blogger dashboard's Settings, I used the function Import Content, under Manage Blog segment.
At this moment, my Blogger-based setup (which was based on a subdomain on blogspot.com) was kept 'not visible to search engines'. I did this to avoid content duplication issues. You should also do this because search engines do not tolerate duplicate contents.
I unchecked the option 'Automatically publish all imported posts and pages' for a purpose. I wanted the imported contents in 'draft' because I actually wanted to refurbish the categories/labels, posts and pages of my blog before moving completely to Blogger. Another advantage of keeping the contents in 'draft' at this phase is that this prevents search engines exploring our new site. They may explore the published posts/pages of our site even if we turn off the option. If they explore and index our content, the issue of content duplication may take search engines to decide penalizing our website(s).
I clicked the 'IMPORT' button to upload posts' XML and pages' XML files separately.
Step 3. Pruning the posts/content
I removed the posts which were not relevant. Those which I decided to keep, I reworked on them. I worked on removing internal links, editing HTML/CSS scripts, editing the content (title, body, h2, h3 etc.) and so on. While I did so, I also reworked on the URL, labels and search description of each post. My main purpose of pruning was to add dynamism to internal SEO and technical SEO.
Step 4. Uploading images
I made sure that I uploaded every image that I used in WordPress site in the Blogger site. Since, I used the same domain and migrated the site with 301 redirection features, this would not be an issue of content duplication.
Step 5. Adding 301 redirects manually
Since I had a well-executed plan; and my hosting plan (of WordPress site) was valid for few more months, I had ample time to work on the content and 301 redirections. For example, I first published the individual posts with proper pruning. Then I registered 301 redirect for each page, post, and category page that would be redirected to the relevant page in Blogger-based website.
Step 6. Adding Custom Domain in Blogger Site
Finally, I edited the DNS of the domain in Cloudflare so that I could connect it with Blogger platform. In such way, I migrated my WordPress site was to Blogger. I also checked if my popular posts from search engines redirected to the new Blogger site. For my project, everything worked properly.
Step 7. Final Steps
I deleted the old WordPress installation just before the expiry of hosting package. I could keep it till the last date of hosting package because the search engines would crawl the new site, not the old site. I enabled the option of 'Allow search engines to find your blog' in Blogger dashboard.
Hence, I would say- with proper planning and execution, migrating from WordPress to Blogger is a matter of better opportunity for some people who want to take the challenge of blog design, and SEO.
