Switch Blogger to WordPress without Losing Google Traffic

Switch Blogger to WordPress without Losing Google Traffic

Switch Blogger to WordPress without losing Google Traffic

Nowadays the number of bloggers is highly increasing. With the number of blog hosting sites that are popping out in the internet today, one of the most popular is the Blogger site. It is one of the most popular ever since it has been released in the worldwide web. However, not all of the Blogger users realizes that being in Blogger still have its limitations and cannot give your full control on your own blog. With this, most of the blog experts recommend that they transfer to WordPress instead. The WordPress is flexible and can be hosted by web hosting service providers such as Bluehost. Is it possible? It is actually possible. To switch Blogger to WordPress is not actually too hard. You can even do it without losing your Goggle traffic.

Switching to WordPress

WordPress is actually just like the Blogger, but much flexible. With WordPress you can do all blogger features simply with just one click. You can even import your blog posts and as well as reader comments with their easy one-click option but it is not just migration of content. In some instances, you might encounter problems such as:

  • If you have posts from Blogger which have a high rank in search engines, if you switch Blogger to WordPress, will lose the search traffic because the permalinks of the blog post will change.
  • Those people who are used your search engines, your browser bookmarks and as well as referrals from those other websites that have linked some pages of your blog will not be automatically redirected to your new website.
  • To switch Blogger to WordPress can also cause your existing readers confusions. Those who are subscribed to your RSS Feed of your Blogger blog will be lost forever if they happen to be not updated of your new website.

WordPress’ built-in Importer tool will actually just transfer the content from Blogger to WordPress and nothing else. However, there is also a detailed step on how you can avoid the above instances to happen. You will just have to spend 5 minutes to complete the whole process and by then, you will be able to fully transfer all the Google traffic as well from your old blog in Blogger to WordPress.

Steps on Switching from Blogger to WordPress

Before anything else, you should backup your Blogger blog first including the XML template, comments and as well as blog posts to be safe.

  1. The first thing that you need to do is sign-up an account to the WordPress hosting company.
  2. From your Blogger account, export your blog by choosing Setting >> Other page.
  3. After doing so, from your WordPress account, import your Blogger post by choosing Tools >> Import page.
  4. You will then need to set up the permalinks on your all new WordPress blog.
  5. All the redirects for your Blogger visitors to the WordPress posts should also be set-up.
  6. You should also set-up the redirects for your RSS feeds.
  7. Then finally, you need to import the images from the Blogger to WordPress media library.

Here is a more detailed instruction:

Step 0. First Things First

Before you can start with WordPress, you need to have your own domain name and as well as a good hosting company for WordPress. With the hosting company, we highly recommend Bluehost. Bluehost has a very good offer for WordPress hosting. They offer a deal with a free domain and as well as a 50% off discount for their hosting plans. Bluehost is actually also the official partner of WordPress for hosting provider.

Once you have already registered and fully signed up for the WordPress hosting, settled your domain name, the next thing you need to do is set up and install the WordPress in your hosting account. Once done, you will now have to continue into moving the content of your old blog, switch from Blogger to WordPress.

Step 1. Blogger Blog Export

After you have set-up the initial detail, you now need to export you Blogger blog’s content. In your blogger dashboard, go to the Settings >> Other page. In the Import & back up part, there is a Back up Content button.

1

Clicking it will lead you to a pop-up window where you will need to click Save to your computer button.

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Doing so will automatically download your Blogger blog’s content to your  computer in an XML file.

3

If the download is now completed, the next thing you should do is import the downloaded file to your WordPress site.

Step 2. Importing to Switch Blogger to WordPress

In order for you to start importing your Blogger blog to your new WordPress site, you need to be in the WordPress admin dashboard. Then, visit the Tools >> Import. In this page, you will need to click on the Blogger.

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A popup window will then welcome you asking for you to install the Blogger to WordPress importer. Through this, you will then need to click on the Install button.

After doing so, the WordPress will automatically download and as well as install the Blogger Importer plugin for the user. Once done, you will then have to click the Active Plugin and Run Importer link for you to continue.

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Clicking the link will lead you to the Import Blogger screen where WordPress will ask for you to upload your Blogger blog’s XML file. You just have to click on the Upload file and import button.

If you have already done the step above, most likely, you will get an error if the size of the file is too large. With this, you will have to increase the maximum file upload limit of your host. On the other hand, if your file only small, you would not have to face any problem at all.

Next

The process of transferring your blogger posts to WordPress is done one by one. You will then be asked to appoint an author to the post from Blogger. You can just appoint or assign someone to your blogger post as the author or create an author.

Done? You have now successfully transferred the content of your blog from Blogger to WordPress. Though you are already done, you need to make sure you would not loose your search rankings and that your old visitors from the previous page will easily be transferred to the same content on your now new transferred WordPress website.

Step 3. Set-up the Permalinks

When we say Permalinks, it is the term which refers to the URL structure of individual pages. In WordPress, they have a feature that will allow you to set up SEO friendly URL structure. But, since you are now transferring contents from Blogger, you will have your URL structure as close to the Blogger URL structure that your blogger have as possible.

To do so, you will need to visit Settings >> Permalinks and from there, you need to choose the Month and name as your permalink structure.

Step 4. Set-up the Redirection

When it comes moving from one website to another, the most important step is setting up a proper redirection for your users to get redirected to your new website.

In redirection, you will want your users to land on the same page on your new website as your old blog. It will also notify your search engines that your old blog site is now moved to another location. For you to successfully switch Blogger to WordPress, there will be two levels to set up redirection.

First, the visitors from your Blogger site will need to be redirected to your new WordPress blog. Second, when your users reach your WordPress blog site, this is the time when you need to redirect them to your exact post that they are trying to read.

So, how should you set-up your blogger blog for redirection? First, log in to your Blogger account, then proceed to the Settings and click on Template.

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When you are now in the template page, scroll down to the bottom of the page, click on the Revert to classic template link. When you are already done, switch to the classic template, from there, you will see the Edit Template HTML textarea. In this text area, you will have to replace everything with the following code. You need to make sure that you replace the http://www.yoursite.com with your own domain name.

 Copy Text

<html>
 <head>
  <title><$BlogPageTitle$></title>

   <script>
    <MainOrArchivePage>
    window.location.href="http://example.com/"
    </MainOrArchivePage>
    <Blogger>
     <ItemPage>
     window.location.href="http://example.com/?blogger=<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>"
     </ItemPage>
    </Blogger>
   </script>

   <MainPage>
   <link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/" />
   </MainPage>

   <Blogger>
    <ItemPage>
    <link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/?blogger=<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>" />
    </ItemPage>
   </Blogger>
 </head>

 <body>
  <MainOrArchivePage>
   <h1><a href="http://example.com/"><$BlogTitle$></a></h1>
  </MainOrArchivePage>
  <Blogger>
   <ItemPage>
    <h1><a href="http://example.com/?blogger=<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>"><$BlogItemTitle$></a></h1>
    <$BlogItemBody$>
   </ItemPage>
  </Blogger>
 </body>
</html>

Copy Text

If you are done, you have now successfully redirected  your blogger blog.

But, you are still not done yet, you will need to setup the redirection of your WordPress as well. Carefully copy and paste the following code to your WordPress theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin.

function blogger_query_vars_filter( $vars ) {
  $vars[] = "blogger";
  return $vars;
}
 
add_filter('query_vars', 'blogger_query_vars_filter');
 
function blogger_template_redirect() {
  global $wp_query;
  $blogger = $wp_query->query_vars['blogger'];
  if ( isset ( $blogger ) ) {
    wp_redirect( get_wordpress_url ( $blogger ) , 301 );
    exit;
  }
}
 
add_action( 'template_redirect', 'blogger_template_redirect' );
 
function get_wordpress_url($blogger) {
  if ( preg_match('@^(?:https?://)?([^/]+)(.*)@i', $blogger, $url_parts) ) {
    $query = new WP_Query ( 
      array ( "meta_key" => "blogger_permalink", "meta_value" => $url_parts[2] ) );
    if ($query->have_posts()) { 
      $query->the_post();
      $url = get_permalink(); 
    } 
    wp_reset_postdata(); 
  } 
  return $url ? $url : home_url();
}

With this code you will create a blogger to WordPress 301 redirect. This is what you will need to ensure that you have the best SEO.

That will be all you will need for the redirection set-up.

Step 5. Feeds Redirection

Not also that your posts will not be automatically be redirected, your RSS subscribers will also be affected if you do not properly transfer your files from your Blogger to WordPress. To resolve this, you need to redirect your feed as well, switch Blogger to WordPress.

Visit your Blogger account now then click Settings >> Other page which can be found on your blog dashboard.

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Under the Site Feeds section, you will have to click Add link. From here, you can just enter the new WordPress feed address.

Step 6. Importing Images

If you switch Blogger to WordPress, the WordPress importer will automatically download the images from your old posts into the WordPress media library. But, there will be times when the downloaded images will fail. It might not happen often, but it will.

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However, you do not need to worry because you can import the images to WordPress. Once you have already all the images in your media library in WordPress, you can now just easily create more image galleries.

Final Verdict

That’s it! If you followed all our steps, you have your old site successfully switch Blogger to WordPress and without losing the Google traffic as well. We hope that you got something out from this step by step tutorial on how you can successfully switch Blogger to WordPress.

If you are into WordPress, you can also visit our articles discussing topics about the blogging site.

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Written by:

Ryan Jacob

Ryan Jacob has 9 years of rich experience in Integrated Marketing Communications and Server Management. He has lead teams of professionals in his career and built online and offline reputation of organizations.

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