Moving a Blog from One Platform to Another

I recently asked you to come up with questions about setting up your own professional site or blog as a freelance writer. Today I'm going to address Kristi Holl's question about moving a site from one blog platform to another.

Question:

I have heard a lot of talk about moving your blog from something like blogspot to your own website, using a free service like WordPress. My question is this: is there a simple way to move from one kind of blog host to another one? Or will I have to copy/paste each blog entry, one at a time, and move it?

Answer:

This will depend a bit on your current blog host and the platform you're planning to move to. Personally, I host all of my blogs myself, and I use WordPress. One thing I love about WP is that you can import your posts from a wide number of other blog platforms, including Blogger, Movable Type, and other WordPress blogs.

I can't speak for every blog platform, but if you switch to hosting your own blog with WordPress, you should generally be able to import your existing blog to the new platform without having to copy/paste posts yourself.

That said, there is a common problem with switching from a free blog host (like blogspot) to hosting your own blog (where you have more control over the back-end). While you'll likely have no problem importing posts, categories, etc., you probably won't be able to setup a 301 redirect from the old blog to the new one (meaning all backlinks built to the original blog, or search engine rankings, won't simply transfer to the new blog).

If you hosted your own blog and are moving to another blog you'll be hosting yourself on a different platform, you won't have this problem, and should be able to setup those redirects on your server (your host should be able to tell you how depending on your control panel).

So think carefully before moving a blog (or before setting something up on a free blog host). To get those links transferred to the new site, you'll have to be prepared to contact people manually requesting the links to be changed... it can be a time-consuming process if you're not prepared to simply start over from scratch on that front.

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Jennifer Mattern is a professional blogger, freelance business writer, consultant, and indie author. She runs numerous websites & blogs including All Freelance Writing, Freelance Writing Pros, NakedPR, and Kiss My Biz.

Jenn has 25 years' experience as a professional writer and editor and over 20 years' experience in marketing and PR (working heavily in digital PR, online marketing, social media, SEO, new media, and thought leadership publication). She also has 19 years' professional blogging and web publishing experience (including web development) and around 18 years of experience as an indie author / publisher.

Jenn also writes fiction under multiple pen names and is an Active member of the Horror Writers Association.

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1 thought on “Moving a Blog from One Platform to Another”

  1. After 4 frustrating weeks of trying to contact and waiting for a reply which never came, i decided to move my blog platform to a more reliable platform. My platform has been flagged for spamming. ( I do not spam. ) Blogspot had disabled my platform before and for the same reason. After sending them a e-mail requesting that they review my site again, i received an e-mail from Blogspot saying that their spam filter sometimes gets fuzzy.

    They apologized to me and put my blog platform back on line. However, this time they did the same thing and flagged my platform. I followed their 4 step protocol but have not received a reply.

    If i transfer my platform from Blogspot to Word Press, will my backlinks be transferred to? I would appreciate the advice Jennifer. Thank You

    Reply

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