How To Migrate Your Blog From Wordpress.com To Wordpress.org
Like thousands of others, I started my blog on Wordpress.com. The benefits of doing so are too many to list here. But there are a few liabilities - such as when you want to ‘monetize’ your blog or use it for purely business related purposes. Or when you’ve decided that the Wordpress.com widgets don’t give you enough functionality, and you want to be able to use the full range of plug-ins. When that time comes, you have to migrate to a server hosting Wordpress.org software. When I migrated a few months ago I found a huge set of headaches waiting for me. I had to do a bunch of things the hard way, because, frankly, I didn’t anticipate 1) the need to ever make the transition and 2) that when I did it might prove detrimental to my blog. So I’m going to show you exactly how to do it correctly, from the time you start a blog on Wordpress.org to the time you decide to migrate to your own hosted server. (Aside - that title is misleading because you’re actually migrating your blog to a SERVER running software downloaded from Wordpress.org - but I had to keep it short and searchable.) Now then:
1. What To Do When You’re Starting a Blog on Wordpress.com
Let’s say you’ve decided to start a blog called ‘All About Slugs‘ and choose Wordpress.com as your blog host. The key to making this work is to anticipate that, someday, you’ll want to migrate to your own server. Knowing that, there are a few things you should do from Day One. a. Buy Domain Mapping - When you create the blog, Wordpress.com will assign the domain as allaboutslugs.wordpress.com by default. You have no choice in the matter. However, Wordpress.com offers domain mapping as a paid upgrade. For $10 a year they will map any domain you own to your Wordpress blog. So if you owned allaboutslugs.com, you could map it to your Wordpress domain. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO TO MAKE FUTURE MIGRATION EASY. As soon as you decide on a domain name, purchase domain mapping and have Wordpress map your preferred domain name to your Wordpress.com blog. Immediately, if not sooner. Benefits: Google will generate search results with the format allaboutslugs.com/[permalink] instead of allaboutslugs.wordpress.com/[permalink]. A huge benefit as you will see. b. Check Out Your Permalinks - again, you have no choice in the way Wordpress.com assigns permalinks (i.e. the link Wordpress creates for individual posts). The default permalink structure is blogname.wordpress.com/year/month/day/postname. For the time being, this isn’t an issue, but it may become one after you migrate to your own server, when you have the ability to create your own permalink format. We’ll deal with that later. However, right now you should get in the habit of using the permalink structure for your internally directed links without the full domain name. For example, let’s say you were writing a post in which you wanted to make a link back to an article titled ‘Slugbait’ you posted on February 10, 2008. Rather than enter the link target as http://allaboutslugs.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/slugbait/, just use /2008/02/10/slugbait. Benefits: Will save you a major headache when you migrate. You won’t have to go through and change your internally directed links.
2. What To Do When You’ve Decided To Migrate To Your Own Server
Let’s assume you’ve done the smart thing - pick a host that’s Wordpress-friendly and offers an automatic install/upgrade function to make life easy. Set up Wordpress on your new server as per the host’s instructions. Follow the directions on Wordpress.com to create an export of your entire blog. Upload that to your new server and import it. You now have your old blog running on a new server. This is the easy part. a. Cancel Domain Mapping and Assign Your Old Domain To Your New Host. You now want allaboutslugs.com to point to your new blog location, so cancel domain mapping with Wordpress.com and assign it to your new host’s IP address. Your host should help you out with that. b. Decide On A Permalink Structure. In the Wordpress dashboard of your new blog, select Settings -> Permalinks. If you want to keep your old permalink structure, select “Day and Name.” If you do this, you are essentially done. After a few days, make sure that the Google search links to your posts are being rerouted to your new server. At that point you can delete your old Wordpress.com blog if you want. c. If You Want A Different Permalink Structure. If (like me) you want to switch to a new permalink structure, you will need to install a plugin called Permalink Redirect. This will let you map your old permalink structure to your new permalink structure, so Google searches won’t result in broken links or 401 messages. I did this, and changed my permalink structure to http://blogname.com/postname. Using Permalink Redirect, I was saved the headache of individually editing all of my old permalinks to the new structure. This will also fix your internally directed links. As I said earlier, I had to learn this the hard way. I didn’t buy domain mapping, and I didn’t use the preferred format for internally directed links. So when I moved to my own server, I had to keep the old Wordpress.com blog and manually redirect each old post to its new permalink on my new server. And I had to find someone who understood MySQL to program a batch file to change the structure of my old internally directed links. Do what I recommend now, and avoid major headaches down the road.
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12 Responses to “How To Migrate Your Blog From Wordpress.com To Wordpress.org”
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Oooh… thanks for the info. I haven’t thought much about moving over to Wordpress.org, but it has been a passing fancy. Your precedence will definitely help if I do end up going that route.
@Vicky - glad to be of service, TGAW. I am eager for someone to try this so I can see what I left out
Hi Friend,
Very helpful information, Thanks!
BTW, Dont take this in the wrong way, but I don’t see new widgets or advertisements in your blog so can u plz tell me wat other reasons there for me to migrate.
@ da moment I am also trying to migrate so can u plz also recommend a wordpress friendly host.
Thanks again.
thank yoou for this interesting tickket, if only people understand whhat you say
it s nice to viisit this nteresting blog 
I’ve recently decided to make the move from wp.com to wp.org. I signed up with a host (bluehost) and installed wp. I had domain mapping on my wp.com blog. The problem is that when I changed the nameserver to bluehost, obviously it routed everything to my new wp.org blog - but it’s not ready to be seen yet. I wanted to find a way to work on my .org blog but still keep the .com one going, especially since with the new .org blog my plan was to do an overhaul with a brand new theme. After trying to follow directions in the support forums at wp.org I was frustrated and confused (I don’t have much technical knowledge). So, I changed the nameserver back to wordpress.com. That’s worked, but now I can’t login to my wp.org because the domain is the same as the wp.com and it takes me to THAT login each time. HELP!?!?
Cool!
Awesome points: will come back:D
“I had to keep the old Wordpress.com blog and manually redirect each old post to its new permalink on my new server.”
Please. How do you do that? Wordpress.com doesn’t allow you to use redirects, correct? Thank you for your help. Paul
Its always good to have a dedicated managed hosted server. Nice post.
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Interesting! I have a blog installed in my site and wishing to move my blog from (mypage.com) to (mypage.com\forum) so this is great info that i need to keep in mind. Thanks