Ready to migrate your blog from Blogger to WordPress? Blogger was one of the first blogging platforms that ever launched, over two decades ago. It stands out due to its really simple interface, the fact that it’s free, and of course, that it’s owned by Google.
However, over the past several years, Blogger hasn’t received much love from developers. This inevitably translates into an outdated platform with countless limitations. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, you can read my Blogger vs WordPress comparison.
If you started your blog on Blogger and it turned out to be something you really love and want to get serious about, maybe it’s time to switch to WordPress. The self-hosted WordPress.org version, that is, the most professional and flexible blogging platform in existence, the blogging platform that powers over 30% of the web and is used by Times, Vogue, and even Beyoncé!
Sounds good? Below I put together a comprehensive tutorial that follows all the steps you need to take to move from Blogger to WordPress, whether you’ve been using the default blogspot.com subdomain (yourblog.blogspot.com) or your own custom domain (yourdomain.com).
How to transfer a blog from Blogger to WordPress
- Sign up for WordPress hosting
- Export Blogger blog
- Import Blogger to WordPress
- Redirect Blogger to WordPress (only if moving from a blogspot.com subdomain)
- Configure the WordPress permalink structure (only if you used a custom domain before)
- Move pages from Blogger to WordPress
- Make your URLs pretty (optional)
- Redirect your RSS feed (optional)
- Make your Blogger blog private
- Customize and enhance your WordPress blog
1. Sign up for WordPress hosting
The first order of business is to sign up for a WordPress hosting account. This is a really easy step. If you’ve been using the default Blogger subdomain (such as yourblog.blogspot.com), I’ll also show you how to get a free custom domain in the process.
I recommend you choose Bluehost as your hosting company because they are extremely beginner-friendly and also super affordable (only $2.95/month for the first year).
To get your hosting account all set up, CLICK HERE to go to Bluehost (the Bluehost website will open in a new tab so you can reference these instructions as you work).
- Click on the Host Your Site button
- Choose a hosting plan (if you only have one blog, the Basic plan is probably all you need)
- Set up your domain.
- If you’ve been using a Blogger subdomain (such as yourblog.blogspot.com), now it’s the perfect time to get a custom domain. When purchasing a hosting plan with Bluehost, your custom domain will be free for the first year, which is another reason I recommend them. To get your domain, simply do a quick search in the Create a new domain box. Once you’ve found an available domain you like, click Next. However, if you can’t find the perfect domain name right away, don’t fret. Scroll down and click on the I’ll create my domain later link. This way, you can continue to migrate your blog from Blogger to WordPress and choose your free custom domain later.
- If you’ve already bought a custom domain through Blogger or a 3rd party registrar, enter it in the Use a domain you own field. Bluehost will provide you with the information you need to transfer your domain and I’ll also give you a few tips on how to complete this step.
- Finish creating your hosting account. Fill in your account details and choose your hosting package (I recommend you opt for the 36-month term so you get the best price — $178.20 for the first 3 years — as opposed to the 12-month term that renews at full price starting with the second year — reaching a grand total of $275.16 in the first 3 years). Optional but totally recommended, keep the Domain Privacy Protection selected (you can unselect all the other extras) so your name and address won’t be displayed publicly in the WHOIS database. Add your payment details and click Submit.
- Choose a password for your Bluehost account.
- Click the Log in button.
- Choose a free theme. Don’t overthink this step. You can change your WordPress theme at any time.
- Click on the Start Building button. You’ll be taken to your WordPress dashboard.
- If you had previously bought a customs domain with a 3rd party registrar or Google Domains, you need to take a couple of extra steps to change your domain’s DNS setting.
- If you had purchased your custom domain directly from Blogger, your domain’s DNS settings can be managed in your Google Domains account. So log into your Google Domains account. Select the domain name you want to update. Look for Advanced DNS settings. Update your DNS records with the nameservers Bluehost emailed you at the time of the account creation (usually NS1.Bluehost.com and NS2.Bluehost.com). The DNS propagation can take a few hours.
- If you had purchased your custom domain with a 3rd party registrar, you should log into your 3rd party registrar’s account and look for Domains >> Manage DNS >> Nameservers >> Manage >> Custom. Please be aware that this might look slightly different from one registrar to another. In the custom fields, type in Bluehost’s name servers as emailed to you at the time of account creation (usually NS1.Bluehost.com and NS2.Bluehost.com). You might also need to change your CNAME and A records. The DNS propagation can take a few hours.
- If you had a redirect set for your Blogger subdomain (yourblog.blogspot.com) to point to your previously bought custom domain (yourdomain.com), now it’s the time to remove it. Go to your Blogger account >> Settings >> scroll all the way down to Publishing, and turn off the toggle key next to Redirect domain.
In case you still have questions about setting up a hosting account, you can read my post on how to start a WordPress blog on Bluehost. There I cover all these steps and more.
Can I transfer my custom domain to Bluehost
Yes, absolutely. If you had previously purchased a custom domain and you want to keep both your hosting and domain under the same account, you can transfer your domain from the 3rd party registrar or Google Domains to Bluehost.
You can do this at any time, so if you want to finish switching from Blogger to WordPress first, you can come back to it later on.
The exact steps will slightly differ from one domain registrar to another (see the exact steps to transfer a domain from GoDaddy to Bluehost), but as a general rule of thumb, you’ll first have to unlock your domain, turn off the Private registration (if you had it on), and get an authorization code from your old registrar.
Once you have the authorization code, go to your Bluehost account >> Domains >> Transfer options >> Transfer this domain to your account >> and paste the authorization code. The domain transfer can take up to a few days to complete.
2. Export Blogger blog
Whether you’ve just registered a new domain name or you’re still waiting for the DNS propagation to complete, it is safe for you to go on and export your Blogger blog.
- Log in to your Blogger dashboard
- Go to Settings
- Scroll down to Manage Blog
- Click on Back up content
- Download to your device
Your blog will be exported as an XML file.
Although the exporter says the ‘backup includes posts, pages, and comments’, when you move Blogger to WordPress manually, only your posts with their corresponding images and comments will be imported to WordPress. If you want to transfer everything (posts, pages, and comments) at once, there’s actually a way to do this, and I’ll talk about it in the next step.
3. Import Blogger to WordPress
Moving your content from Blogger to WordPress can be done either manually or with the help of a plugin. Here I’ll show you how to do both. The plugin way is actually more elegant and quicker but it isn’t free unless your blog is tiny.
Import Blogger to WordPress manually
To import your Blogger blog to WordPress manually, follow these steps:
- Log into your WordPress dashboard
- Go to Tools in the left side menu >> Import >> Blogger >> Install Now. WordPress will install the Blogger Importer plugin for you
- Once this is complete, click Run Importer and upload the XML file you downloaded in step 2.
- When your posts have finished importing, you’ll be asked to assign an author to your posts. You can use an existing author or create a new one
Import Blogger to WordPress with the help of a plugin
If you only have a few posts, you ran into issues while uploading your Blogger blog to WordPress or don’t mind paying a little extra, installing the Blogger Importer Extended plugin is a great alternative to the above.
This plugin will import both your posts and pages, take care of mixed content (meaning it will convert all ‘http‘ resources to ‘https‘), and even redirect your Blogger content to its new WordPress home.
The Blogger Importer Extended plugin is free to use, however, in case you have more than 20 posts, you might have to purchase a license.
How to install the Blogger Importer Extended plugin (or any other WordPress plugin)
- In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins >> Add New
- Type ‘Blogger Importer Extended’ (or the name of another plugin you’re looking for) in the search box
- Click Install Now
- Activate
The Blogger Importer Extended plugin connects directly to your Blogger account, which means you don’t actually have to export and import your blog in XML format manually. Nonetheless, it’s still good practice to back up your blog before migrating it to WordPress (as shown in step 2) just in case something goes wrong.
Once you’ve activated the Blogger Importer Extended plugin, scroll down to find it in your list of plugins and click Run Importer. Follow the instructions to connect to Blogger and import your posts and pages.
Next, set up the 301 redirects to redirect your old Blogger posts to their WordPress version.
If your blog was on the blogspot.com subdomain before migrating it to WordPress, you’ll also want to redirect your Blogger traffic to WordPress. To do this, you’ll have to replace your Blogger theme’s HTML code with the code the Blogger Importer Extended plugin provides you. Simply click Download Template to get it.
4. Redirect Blogger to WordPress (only if moving from a blogspot.com subdomain)
If you manually moved your blog from Blogger to WordPress (without the help of the Blogger Importer Extended plugin) AND your blog was on the default blogspot.com domain, you’ll need to set up a redirect in Blogger.
The purpose of the redirect is to let both readers and search engines know that your blog has moved to a custom domain.
Redirects should always be done from the source page, in this case, Blogger.
To do this, you can use the Blogger To WordPress plugin.
- First, install the plugin (in case you’ve missed it, go back to step 3 to see how). Then go to Tools >> Blogger to WordPress redirection >> Start Configuration. This plugin will automatically detect the blogspot.com blog from where you manually imported your content. Copy the custom code they generate for you and paste it into your Blogger template.
- To err on the side of caution, I recommend you back up your Blogger template first. To do this, log in to your Blogger dashboard >> Themes >> click on the arrow next to the Customize button >> Backup.
- Once you’ve created the backup, go back and click on the arrow next to the Customize button again, and this time select Edit HTML. Select the entire HTML code and delete it. Then paste the code provided by the Blogger to WordPress plugin. Click on the Save icon in the top right corner to save the changes.
- Finally, go back to your WordPress dashboard and click on the Verify Configuration.
- One last step is to disable the mobile version of your Blogger blog. To do this, go to Themes >> Mobile >> make sure the ‘No, Show desktop theme on mobile devices’ is selected. If you’re using the latest Blogger interface, this step might not be necessary anymore.
Please be aware that you’ll have to keep the Blogger to WordPress plugin active for as long as you want the redirection to work.
5. Configure WordPress permalink structure (only if you used a custom domain before)
One of Blogger’s many limitations is that you can’t change the permalink structure, so the publication date always shows in post URLs. This looks neither clean nor user-friendly.
Things are completely different in WordPress though. When building a blog in WordPress, your permalink structure can be pretty much anything you want it to be.
However, changing your permalink structure in mid-flight like this can negatively impact your blog’s SEO and search engine rankings. Which is why I don’t recommend it.
Instead, I recommend you configure your WordPress permalink structure to resemble your Blogger permalink structure. Then you can set a redirect to a cleaner permalink structure (I’ll show you how in step 7).
To set up WordPress to use your old, Blogger style permalink structure:
- Log into your WordPress dashboard
- Go to Settings >> Permalinks >> choose ‘Custom Structure’ and type
/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
6. Moving pages from Blogger to WordPress
If you used the Blogger Importer Extended plugin in step 3, both your blog post and pages should have been moved to your WordPress site. So you can skip this step.
But if you manually transferred your blog from Blogger, your pages were not imported into WordPress. So you’ll have to do it manually.
This means you’ll have to copy + paste the contents of your pages one by one.
Luckily, the steps for completing this couldn’t be more straightforward.
- Go to your Blogger dashboard >> Pages
- Choose a page you want to move to WordPress and click on it to open it in the editor
- Select all its contents and click ‘copy’ (or ctrl/cmd + c)
- Go to your WordPress dashboard >> Pages >> Add New
- Paste your content (or ctrl/cmd + v). All your formating (links, headers, etc.) should still be in place.
7. Make your URLs pretty (optional)
To take advantage of the clean permalink structures available in WordPress, you can set up a redirect using the Redirection plugin.
This step is totally optional, but I think it will make your blog look so much more user-friendly. Plus your evergreen posts will no longer look time-bound.
- First off you’ll have to install and activate the Redirection plugin (I explained how to do this in step 3)
- Once installed and activated, go to Tools >> Redirection. to Complete the setup as per the plugin’s instructions
- To redirect Blogger style URLs (http://yourblog.blospot.com/year/month/post-name.html) to shorter, post name only URLs (http://yourcustomedomain.com/post-name), make sure you have Regex selected. Then copy + paste ^/\d{4}/\d{2}/(.+)\.html(.*) in the Source URL field and /$1/$2 in the Target URL field.
Keep the Redirections plugin installed for as long as you want your redirections to work. You can always uninstall the plugin after a while when you decide it doesn’t benefit you anymore.
To make sure all posts you publish from now on will automatically have the Post Name permalink structure, in your WordPress dashboard go to Settings >> Permalinks >> choose Post Name.
9. Redirect your RSS feed (optional)
While RSS feeds aren’t as widely used as they used to be, I still recommend you redirect your old RSS feed so readers who chose to receive updates this way, can continue to do so.
To make this change, simply go back to your Blogger dashboard >> Settings >> Site feed >> Post feed redirect URL and change the URL to https://yourcustomdomain.com/feed (replace yourcustomdomain.com with your own custom domain)
9. Make your Blogger blog private
Check if everything is working properly, then go back to your Blogger dashboard and make your old blogspot.com blog private.
This way, there won’t be two versions of your blog available online and search engines won’t penalize you for duplicate content. You can do this in Settings >> scroll down to Privacy >> Visible to search engines and turn the toggle key off.
10. Customize and enhance your WordPress blog
Congrats! If you’ve made it this far, it means you successfully switched Blogger to WordPress without losing search engine rankings in the process. This is awesome! But don’t stop here. Now that your blog is on WordPress, take advantage of all the customization and improvements you can make.
Not to make this article any longer, I’ll leave you some links to articles I wrote. Use them as inspiration to pick what you want to work on next.
- How to choose the perfect WordPress theme.
- How to become a professional blogger and get paid for doing what you love.
- Learn how to build a strong personal brand and make a great first impression.
- How to declutter your blog the Marie Kondo way. Might help you reconsider the widgets you want to take with you to WordPress and which ones to part ways with.
- How to find the motivation to blog consistently. We lose motivation sometimes, but this will keep you on track.
- How to build an email list. Tons of tips for starting with Mailerlite, my favorite email marketing provider.
About the author:
Hey there, dream chaser! I’m a writer and designer on a mission to inspire and empower you to create a highly profitable minimalist online business and show up for your dreams in a sustainable way.
xo, Laura
