A few things I have learned… RE: Blogger to WordPress
I am going to share with you some of the things I learned while making the transition to WordPress (self hosted) from blogger regarding followers, friends, RSS Feed Readers and Email Subscribers and how I successfully made the jump!
There of course are many amazing resources that helped me tremendously while working through the transfer such as importing posts, fixing my links, and so on in this process. I am not going to repeat whats already out there but instead link you to a couple sites that I found helpful for your review.mamablogga.com the-ultimate-guide-to-migrating-from-blogger-to-wordpress
moving-from-blogger-to-wordpress-maintaining-permalinks-traffic-seo/
migrating-from-blogger-to-wordpress.html
But when it game to transferring my feed and keeping my Google Friend connect in place, these were are a couple of the things that I wasnt able to find as much infomation on.
DISCLOSURE- I am not claiming to be an expert. I am not guaranteeing 100% issue free success. I am only putting down my journey and what worked for me down in hopes that someone may benefit from my experience.
Here are a few key items you need to pay attention to when transitining blogs and some mistakes NOT to make.
- FEED BURNER- There is a plugin called Feedburner Feedsmith that is suppose to help you re route your feed to the new location. I was unable to get this to work for the first month! The trick to this is- that you have to upload it to your plugin menu and DO NOT ACTIVATE IT! Go to your hosting account and move it out of its folder and into the main plugin folder all by its self. It did not work for me untill I did this. You do not have to burn a new feed. You only change the source address in feedburner from your blogger address to your wordpress feed address. The feed address that all are subscribed to should be entered in the feedsmith pluggin. This will keep your email subscriptions.
- If already had your domain through blogger or if you are just adding a new domain. Keep the domain name you are using in the blogger settings menu for forwarding. In blogger also make sure the same feed address is listed as above for forwarding. NEVER ever put your feed URL in your feedburner forward to section. Your feed will break! Hear me. Will not work and fixing it is not guaranteed.
- FRIEND CONNECT- From what I understand Blogger has combined the Friend Connect and Google Reader feature in to one Widget that works in your blogger dashboard to benefit blogger users- As we know if you add someone on google friend connect they will pop up in your google reader (in the bottom of your blogger dashboard) But in saying this- You can use your Friend Connect Gadget on your wordpress page and show all of your friends/followers on your new wordpress site by changing the advanced settings on your google friend connect widget to allow your “domain address” to use your “blogspot” device.
- To allow use of your current Friend Connect on your WordPress Blog you need to change your FC advanced settings in your google dashboard (or my account from blogger) or just click here. The setting’s menu is hidden (at least for me) Once you long into FC In the address bar of the page copy the long string of numbers at the end of the URL which is your friend ID. Then use the following link. http://www.google.com/friendconnect/admin/site/advancedsettings?id=# (replace the # with your friend ID) This will drop you into your advanced settings menu in the case you cant locate it. In the second field add the alternate address of your WordPress domain. This is you giving your permission to let this domain use your friend connect gadget with your followers on it. In the general settings also change your primary URL to your domain. This will allow google reader to grab feed from your new domain address.
- Do NOT delete your blogger blog. You are still going to use it! for certain things! For example all picture links are part of blogger. WordPress does not host them.
- Do NOT put your wordpress feed address in your blogger feed section. Refer above…
I have been on wordpress for a month now and after fixing all my issues, figuring out how to change things, maintain things, etc. Hopefully you can use these skips and skip directly to enjoying how much wordpress has to offer! The possibilities are endless and exploring has been a blast! I hope you can already see all the new options on my blog and hopefully this make surfing easier for you going forward!
If you have tips or tricks to add to this please let me know! I honestly dont know much else in regards to all of this besides what I posted here. I wish you luck if you decide to take the same “leap” in the future! I just wanted to share what I knew and hopes it may help you!
All Cosmetic items discussed in the above post were purchased by me. Anything written is my own opinion and not influenced by any other person or company.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
OMG!! You rock! Your instruction on the google friend connect worked like a charm and was super easy to complete. I’m still trying to figure out the Rss Feed I’m so confused. But thanks so much for the fc info
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
January 20th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Hi there! yay! Im glad I could help! lol! The only thing is that if people add you as a friend they are subscribing to your blogspot and wont get your feeds. I am still trying to figure out the redirection of the feed. I just tried the feed instructions from the last link I posted above and Im just waiting till my email goes out to see if that worked! Ill let you know If I am successful!
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I’m contemplating on self-hosting for a while now and this post is so wonderful! Thank you so much, Sara!
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:39 am
Your welcome! Let me know how it goes!
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So glad to find this. I have a bunch of Google Followers I want to bring with me to WordPress. I hope I can do what you did!
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:34 am
Girl! Good luck! I had such a struggle figuring out so much on my own. I hope the transition is smooth sailing for you!
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Don’t be afraid of WordPress. Once you cross over, you’ll wonder why you hesitated.
Clara´s last blog ..Best Beauty Products
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Hi. I just moved to WordPress from Blogger and although I have Google Friend Connect working on my site, my followers can’t see me in their dashboard. How did you work around this as I know I was able to see you in my dashboard. Thanks in advance!
Mz More´s last blog ..Big Move… Temporarily Under Construction
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 20th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Did you edit the settings for your friend connect at the google/friendconnect site? If so, your gadget shouls change from a follower widget to a friend connect widget and your new blog url needs to be your primary home url not just an added user. in alternate. blogger.com needs to be there. But not your blogspot address. Doing this should discconnect blogger from your friend connect.
In your feedburner feed (this got me stuck for a while so I am scared to send you in the wrong direction) But the way I have it set up currently is that in my same feed address I always used for blogger I changed my original feed address to my main wordpress issued site feed address. In blogger you still need to keep your feedburner feed address in there for forwarding. NOT your ORIGINAL feed address. I read to add that somewhere and it broke my feed for like amonth!
I hope this helped you
I know you will love wordpress!
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Thank you so much for your help. I followed all of these steps but my new url wasn’t primary in GFC advanced settings and my followers couldn’t see me in their reader. I hope they can now since I can see them. Thanks again. I am loving WordPress so far it just takes a LOT of getting used to.
Mz More´s last blog ..Big Move… Temporarily Under Construction
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 20th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Your welcome!! I like instant gradification, lol. Thats one thing this process is not. You might just leave it be and in a couple days post and it will all pop up like its suppesto. I know feedburner updates periodically. Not as soon as we make changes. But it sounds like your set up like you should be! It is alot to get use. Always something new! lol.
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Yeah it’s so confusing. Feedburner is updating fine. It’s just google reader acting up. I am following myself and I don’t see anything after my switch. I guess I’ll just leave it alone and worry about tweaking my layout for now lol. Thanks again!
Mz More´s last blog ..Big Move… Temporarily Under Construction
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I’m back again lol. How can I create a 2nd menu bar out of categories. I’m totally stuck there. I’ve come far creating my layout from scratch but still working out a few things.
Mz More´s last blog ..MAC Venomous Villains Collection Coming Soon…
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 21st, 2010 at 8:50 pm
hi! girl, i have NO idea, lol.. im sorry. I know some templates they are in there like that but not on all. I tried looking for a plugin that maybe would do the job but I couldnt find anything… im sorry…:(
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lol Thanks anyway. I have the highly customizable Atahualpa template which has been great and I’ve been figuring it out so far, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to do that.
Mz More´s last blog ..MAC Venomous Villains Collection Coming Soon…
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I’m back again lol. I’m noticing that my FriendsConnect gadget shows up fine in Firefox, but in internet explorer it says no members yet. Any advice? I don’t understand what’s wrong
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Hi. I was having a similer issue and I was told to try and add stuff to my friend connect script… read here: http://www.google.bg/support/forum/p/friendconnect/thread?tid=4a8db10d03f3ef64&hl=en
Are you using the friend connect widget from wordpress or code from the friend connectsite?
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Okay I am going to check out that thread. Whatever you did probably worked because I can see your members fine in IE. I’m currently using the code but I tried both and neither show correctly in IE. Are you using the widget or the code? I also have the google friend connect integration plugin… are you using that as well?
Thank you so much for all of your help, I really appreciate it.
Mz More´s last blog ..Update: The BIG move to WordPress
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 11:45 am
ok, this is where it getts a little confusing. I needed that script originally. But once wordpress upgraded I didnt need it anymore. I am using the code alone from the site.
Because friend connect is java script it doesnt work with certain plugins as well. So if you have other plugins using javascript they may not work together. So perhaps a recent plugin?
BTW I cant even open your site in IE. It crashes without fail…
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Ok I just checked, I’m able to open my site in IE. Maynbe you couldn’t open it because I was playing with the GFC code. Can you try again please. I’m going to deactivate the google friend connect integration plugin and see what happens. Thank you!
Mz More´s last blog ..Update: The BIG move to WordPress
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 11:55 am
I still cant open it. That same thing happened to me originally too. Its something with your scripting. Something to do with java but I dont remember how I fixed mine exactly… Maybe ask a couple more people to check out your site in IE. Cause I for sure cant get it to come up. I keep getting “operation aborted” message
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Thank you so much. I’m checking it out.
Mz More´s last blog ..Update: The BIG move to WordPress
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Hey thanks for alerting me that my site was crashing in IE. A text widget I created for my Networks and the Networked Blogs widgets were the problems. Now the page appears to be loading fine w/o errors. I’m still working on the GFC isseus then I’ll figure out what’s wrong with the other widgets. Thanks again!
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Your welcome!! It looks llike everything is coming together now!! You getting your plugins all figured out! And you got your category bar, lol!
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yeah it’s coming together slowly but surely. I don’t think my followers can can me though as my posts are not showing on their blog rolls and I’m still trying to figure out this networked blogs widget crap. I’m pulling my hair out! lol
Mz More´s last blog ..Update: The BIG move to WordPress
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Hi. This was the hardest part for me. I was broken for like a month. I think I ended up actually having to burn a new feed but I am scared to tell you to do that. I dont want to break you. lol… I honestly to this day am not quite sure how I got fixed. lol.
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lol I’m already broken. I lost a lot of subscribers. But I used a feed Validator to check my old Blogger Feed and it redirects to my new feed saying it is valid so that part is in order. However, I’m not getting updates for myself in Google Reader yet, something about a fetch error. However my subscribers are much higher in that view. I’ll just wait until the feed is crawled and see if it fixes itself. I’m not messing with it anymore since I know the sync is working.
My biggest issue now is not having my blogger followers receive my updates in their readers. They are not being updated. I’ve been working on this all afternoon. How did you fix this?
Mz More´s last blog ..Testing 1, 2….
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Google reader and feedburner work together. The link is broken between the two. Feedburner isnt picking up feed on your blog. But I dont know exactly how to fix that.. I honestly think I got so frustrated in the end that I delated my feed and burned a new feed using the same feed name.. I dont want to say to do that and make things worse for you since I dont remember exactly.. but the more I think about it, that might have been it… hmm..
Sara´s last blog ..Quick Note to My Readers… I wanted to mention…
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Ok I think I got it as I’m seeing Google Reader update and Blogger. The Feedsmith part is confusing. I had to completely delete it and then upload feedsmith.php to my main plugins folder, and now it appears to be working.
I had the feedsmith folder inside of the plugins folder and just moved the php. file to the main folder. This was the problem. You must extract the zip file on your computer and upload ONLY the feedsmith.php to /wp-content/plugins
Now I’ll see if my followers start to get updates. Fingers crossed. Thank you so much hon!
Mz More´s last blog ..Testing 1, 2….
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
lol.. I wrote that in my post above! I had thought you tried that and it didnt work. So I was even more stuck. lol.. Fingers crossed for you!
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lol Yeah I know that’s why I said it was confusing. I thought you meant to move it out of it’s folder within plugins and into the main plugins folder. I understood wrong, after playing around with it now I know
Should my Blogger Followers be able to see me now?
Mz More´s last blog ..Testing 1, 2….
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
I dont know… lol.. I tell you this part was fuzzy for me. Its like I finally did something that worked so I just noted it all down before I forgot! I hope you are better… But I really do think I reburned my feed… But dont do that untill last resort. Not a new feed. Exact same feed. Delete old and create new. Im so scared for you. I remember how sick Iwas going through this whole process… ugg!
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I’m scared for me too lol. I’m just going to wait it out a few days and see what happens. How are you getting Networked Blogs widget to show. It’s showing just the logo in IE8 for me and that is what was making me crash in IE6. Another loop
Mz More´s last blog ..Testing 1, 2….
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 7:04 am
Im not sure about networked blogs either.. .I just pasted the code and it worked, But I know some of the widgets dont work with certain plugins as I mentioned earlier. Like they are not compatible with some java stuff etc. I had a light box on my blog and my friend connect wouldn’t pop up for example so i had to deactivate.
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I definitely had to reburn my feed. Thing is I still can’t figure out how to get my Blogger followers to see me in their Dashboard. It’s still not updating properly.How did you do this?
Mz More´s last blog ..Testing Again 1, 2…
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Friend connect uses your feed address. for example mine is feeds.feedburner/themakeupsnob <—- this is what all my readers are subscibed too. If you burn a new feed that is feeds.feedburner/themakeupsnobatwp you dont have anyone subscribed to that address. So no one will be seeing it. You have to use your old feed address. If you look in google reader you can see the feed address that all your FC peeps are subscibed too.
What I mentioned before was that I think I delated my feeds.feedburner/themakeupsnob address so It didnt exist. Then REBURNED a new feed using the EXACT same address. This is what I am scared to tell you to do. But I as I try and remember more. I think this is what I did. I dont remember exactly…..
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Thank you for all this information. I am in the process of switching over and the points you address is where I was hung up! I thank you!
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
June 8th, 2010 at 8:47 am
Hi Bree! Glad I was able to help. I know it was a process so I was notating along the way. Hopefully it all made sense! Good luck with the switch!!
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Omg thanks for the wonderful tutorial but I’m still not managing to connect everything, when I’m on my dashboard I have added blogspot to follow on there so I can see if the now wordpress will feed through that but nothing, I’m so confused and frustrated would you be able to look over it for me at all ?
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Sara themakeupsnob.com Reply:
June 13th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
hi LaaLaa! Im glad I was able to help! Congrats on the move! I understand what you are saying. the feed part was what I had the most trouble with. Mine was broken for like a month. If you look at the above comments in the post I was telling Mz More a bit about the feed. I dont want to tell you what to do. but I think I ended up delating my feed and then burned the exact same feed address since thats what everyone was subscribed too.. But again, like I said I am scared to say that because I dont remember exactly… But I think Mz More said she did fix her feed. You might ask her since this was just a couple weeks ago and will be super fresh for her! lol.
Im sorry I am not more help!! If you have other questions let me know. Its just the feed part I know I did a million things to try and get it to work.. So I am not 100% what actually did it!!
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