Moving from Blogger to WordPress – the saga continues

Once more I’ve learned a lesson about doing the appropriate research before jumping into something! My move from Blogger to WordPress ran into problems when I tried the feature to ‘auto-import from blogger’ feature, due to the fact I’m with Godaddy hosting. So I had to export from blogger, import into a WordPress.com blog, then export from there and import into my hosted WordPress blog! And even then 6 months of my blog somehow disappeared, and are still being re-added when I have time.

But on top of that I forgot to put a proper redirect for people visiting my old blog, assuming that a post telling them I’d moved, and the lack of new content would see my old blog gently slip under the waves of the Google search…Wrong!

Not only did my old blog continue to rank higher than this one (Google PR4), and still attract visitors, but if they visited an individual post, there was no indication I’d moved. And I suspect all that duplicate content is why this blog still has a Page Rank of 0. Google no like duplicate content.

Tonight, I finally sorted it out, thanks to the excellent ‘How to redirect Blogger Beta to WordPress instructions here. So now my old blog will finally be removed from Google, visitors are automatically redirected, there’s a direct redirect to individual posts where the importing actually worked, and there’s even a public information notice up explaining!

I get there in the end!

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Importing from Blogger to WordPress with Godaddy hosting

There’s going to be some interruption to posting as I manually import about 6 months of blog posts that appear to have gone missing during my transfer from Blogger to WordPress.

The original import failed completely, until I spotted other users had problems importing – specifically when they are hosted by Godaddy. The easy way around this is to export, and then import to a hosted WordPress.com blog, and then import it from there to your hosted blog.

Worked fine for me until the import failed due to a rogue character somewhere that I just can’t find.

So now it’s Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V for a while, whilst also trying to post some new stuff every so often, and rebuild by Page Rank and link equity…Who would ever transfer blogs!

Another big change is on the way…

So far the last 12 months have seen me move house, start a new job, and within the next few days, become a father.

So it seemed the perfect time to make another couple of changes. The first is that I’m currently working on a new home for this blog, which will be at www.thewayoftheweb.net. It means I can finally type the url in seconds, rather than minutes.

I’m also switching to a hosted account with Godaddy, and building the new site with WordPress. I’ve got lots of praise for what Blogger has allowed me to do, but although it’s very easy to set up and use, and the free hosting allows advertising (Unlike the free hosting version of WordPress), it’s quite restrictive with regards to templates etc, and so many sites are instantly recognisable as Blogger creations. Plus, switching to three columns has given me enough space for all the widgets I want, but it’s made the main text space a little claustrophobic, so hopefully my new freedom will enable a bit more space… I’ll keep you posted how the new site is coming along, and make sure there’s plenty of warning, in case you’ve subscribed to my RSS feed etc. Rest assured if I do add the .com domain at some point, .net will remain the main place for RSS feeds etc, so no more changing.

I also invested in danthornton.net, and contacted the current owner of the dot.com version. I’m not too much of an egotist, but it’s just handier for anyone wanting background info, and I’m also conscious that one day, I could have been involved in a far more minor version of the current Shel Israel blogodrama.

So that’s my current position. I’ll still be updating here for a bit longer while I get a template etc I’m happy with, and move across my archives, and then it’ll be all systems go!