Converting from Blogger to Wordpress at Fix Your Desktop

I’m sure there are million posts out there on converting to WordPress from Blogger. But I found it difficult to get any really good information on how to make this transition. But with a littler perseverance and determination, It’s been done. FixYourDesktop has finally been converted from the rather bland “Blogger” to the fancy WordPress site. Here’s how I did it…

I’m assuming of course you already have a .com or .net or whatever address. So if you don’t…. get one… then come back.
Now I had to find a suitable new host. Many were very expensive, and the free ones had tons of ads and no freedom/features.
- I finally found a good host that was charging me $3/month for almost unlimited bandwidth, storage, databases etc.
- Once I signed up and registered with them, I looked around for their DNS address. This was the address that would tell me where to point my .com so that all my traffic would go there instead of where it was going before.
Then I had to re-route the DNS address. Meaning I had to “tell the internet” where my new site would be stored (my new host).
- My Domain Registrar (the company I paid for my .com address) is GoDaddy. So I signed into their control center and poked around.
- I found the place where I could change my DNS address. Then I popped in the addresses from step 2 (there’s usually 2 or more).
- Then I waited. The changeover can take as long as a couple of days. But with Godaddy, It took about 30 minutes. But not completely.
  - You see when the DNS is modified, it has to sen the new information to all the DNS servers around the world. There are a lot so it takes a while.
  - So when you type in a URL - http://www.whatever.com/ you send that request to the nearest DNS server to you.
  - If I’m in Japan, maybe my closest DNS server hasn’t been updated yet so I might go one place and you to another, until all the DNS servers are in sync. Get it
Once the changeover was complete I could now enter my domain name http://www.fixyourdesktop.com and I would be sent to my new host.
Luckily for me the new host had “scripts” that woud automatically install pretty much any type of software I wanted on my new site.
So I used the WordPress install script and presto chango I had a fully functional WordPress installation.
Because WordPress can be a bit Cumbersome, the first thing I installed was the OneClick Installer Plugin.
- This Plugin is awesome, it allows you to easily install other Plugins and Themes quickly and easily, It is essential.
- I used my new hosts “File Manager” to upload the OneClick Installer to my WordPress Plugins Directory.
- Then I logged into my WordPress account, from the Plugins Tab, I activatd it, and now from the Dashboard I could do a “One Click” install of any theme and Plugin I wanted (and no more need to use the File Manager).
I installed the theme of my choice (as you can see), and then began picking my favorite Plugins and such.
The hardest part was converting my old Posts and Comments to my new site. You see WordPress has a handy dandy “Import” feature, that of course…. didn’t work.
So next I had to find out why, and what alternatives I had.
- The most unsavory alternative was to import all my posts (about 55) by hand. Yuck…. one at a time… no thank you.
- The most uncertain, was to see if I could find a way to MAKE WordPress work, or at least some workaround or something.
So after an exhaustive Google Search, I found what I needed here.
To sum it up, I had to go into my wp-admin/import/blogger.php (edit the .php file with notepad or something) and look for: www2.blogger.com around line 84 and replace it with www.blogger.com
Now there is another line in the blogger.php file that also has ww2.blogger.com - DON’T CHANGE THAT ONE
Save your changes, and then go back to your WordPress site from the Manage >> IMPORT >> BLOGGER menu’s I initiated the import.
Now the first time it didn’t work for me. So I left that menu, then came back. Followed the directions on how to “reset” the import, and tried again.
On the second attempt, it worked, and all my posts came over like a charm!
Sounds simple no? Well all this took me about 5 days total. Long time, lots of effort, but with it don’t you think? Please post comments and let me know how you like the new site layout.