Finally Completed The Move To Wordpress From Blogware
I’ve finally ‘finished’ the move from Blogware to WordPress and the end result is a lot better than I’d hoped and the DNS propagation is nearly finished I think, as the site is becoming more active by the hour. I was determined to do the move on my own and I ‘almost’ managed.
It’s not something I would recommend doing unless you really want a change, but if you are keen to move then it is possible. When I’ve got time I’m going to write up a guide to moving blog hosts. Although it will focus on moving from Blogware to WordPress, some of the steps will apply to all moves regardless of platform, particularly the tricks I’ve discovered for redirecting old external links.
So far I’ve managed to:
- Transfer my domain
- Import all of my old posts
- Import about 70% of my old comments
- Import all of my old trackbacks (although I had to do them as comments and I also lost the clickthrough links which is a pity)
- Redirect all old permalinks to the old articles, categories, archives and keywords (very pleased I cracked this one!)
- Transfer my feedburner account
Outstanding items are:
- Tidying up posts as the import script lost some of the formatting (medium priority)
- Trying to work out how to redirect old searches on my blog that had been picked up by search engines (low priority)
- Missing pictures that are referencing locations on my old server (medium priority)
- Create a custom 404 page with explanations/help (high priority)
- Copy across my moblog pictures/photo albums (low priority)
I’m very happy with the new look & feel even though I haven’t had much time to tweak the template (and even sometimes access because of DNS issues) or even to look around for one that I like. Even so, I think this site has a nice fresh feel to it and I’ve already incorporated quite easily some features I couldn’t on the last blog like:
- Article reads
- Better info on who’s online. Even shows what they are reading
- Popularity (very cool as it uses views, comments and trackbacks to create a score per post)
- Most viewed
- Better search integration
I think what I will do is use this template as my experimental template and then I’ll select a new one based on what features I decide I need or want.
Anyway enjoy the site and let me know if you see any errors, or have any migration tips or plugin recommendations.
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Comment by Chris Pirillo on 9 June 2006:
Been trying to update my own .htaccess code to work more like yours, but… no go.
I’ll just have to live with it.
Comment by Everton Blair on 9 June 2006:
Hmmm. Did you manage to extract and match your old article permalinks if you did then write rules like:
RewriteRule ^blog/_archives/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)/1307475.html$ http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/1/2/3/570 [R=301,L]
which redirects http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/blog/_archives/2005/10/18/1307475.html http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2005/10/18/570. If you check this you’ll even see that the search engines are starting to correct themselves because of the 301’s
If you haven’t managed to extract your article permalinks you can still post these lines at the top of your .htaccess to get some benefit (just cut&paste):
# BEGIN WordPress
Options +Indexes
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# Redirect Old Archive urls number 4 rewrites blog/archives/YYYY/DD/MM/Anything to date/YYYY/DD/MM
RewriteRule ^blog/_archives/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})/(.*)$ http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/date/1/2/3 [R=301,L]
# Redirect Old Archive urls number 3 rewrites blog/archives/YYYY/DD/MM to date/YYYY/DD/MM
RewriteRule ^blog/_archives/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})$ http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/date/1/2/3 [R=301,L]
# Redirect Old Archive urls number 2 rewrites blog/archives/YYYY/MM to date/YYYY/MM
RewriteRule ^blog/_archives/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})$ http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/date/1/2 [R=301,L]
# Redirect Old Archive urls number 0 rewrites blog/archives/YYYY/DD/MM to date/YYYY
RewriteRule ^blog/_archives/([0-9]{4})?$ http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/date/1/ [R=301,L]
# Redirect Old Keyword Permalinks
RewriteRule ^blog/cmd=search_keyword/k=(.*)$ http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/index.php?s=1&submit= [R=301,L]
# Redirect Old Searches
RewriteRule ^blog\?cmd=search&keywords=(.*)$ http:www.connectedinternet.co.uk/index.php?s=$1&submit= [R=301,L]
# Redirect Old Category Permalinks number 5
RewriteRule ^blog/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)$ http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/category/1 [R=301,L]
# Redirect Old Category Permalinks number 4
RewriteRule ^blog/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)$ http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/category/1 [R=301,L]
# Redirect Old Category Permalinks number 3
RewriteRule ^blog/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)$ http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/category/1 [R=301,L]
# Redirect Old Category Permalinks number 2
RewriteRule ^blog/(.*)/(.*)$ http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/category/1 [R=301,L]
# Redirect Old Category Permalinks number 1
RewriteRule ^blog/(.*)$ http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/category/1 [R=301,L]
Comment by Chris Pirillo on 9 June 2006:
No, I didn’t get the articles extracted. I still have the original export file, tho… and I’m not sure I have the same structure now as you do…
Comment by Everton Blair on 9 June 2006:
Ahh, that’s why you’re having problems. I didn’t use the export generated by the admin console to extract my old permalinks. I got them by extracting the source code on the ‘Post Manager’ pages and extracting the permalinks by messing around in Word/Excel with Find & replaces.
I did it this long-winded way becuase it was the weekend and I couldn’t wait until Monday - an easier way would be to send an email to Blogware asking for a dump of your permalinks and IDs.
Comment by Malcolm on 30 May 2008:
If you’re still monitoring this page - did you ever publish your notes on transferring from Blogware to Wordpress?
I’m Just starting the process and looking for guidance…
malcolm AT moris DOT hk
Comment by Malcolm on 30 May 2008:
just adding notify by email !