Moving From WordPress.com To WordPress.org
This is my experience of moving my blog from wordpress.com to wordpress.org and I hope that you will find it useful. If there is something that I have not covered here that you would like to know, please feel free to send me an email.
The first thing you need to do is find an internet service provider (ISP). If you are in South Africa then I can highly recommend Take A Byte – contact them via email on support (AT) takeabyte (DOT) co (DOT) za – Duncan has been an absolute star.
You are going to need to map your own domain i.e. from bloggingfood.wordpress.com to bloggingfood.com. I would suggest that you do this before you even attempt to move from .com to .org. Once you have done this, let all your readers know your new URL.
Once your domain is mapped, the domain has to be transferred. You will need an authorization code for this to be completed. Follow the instructions here on the wordpress.com site! Once you have a date for the transfer I would suggest you do not blog for a week leading up to the transfer. Tell your readers that the move will be taking place and give them a date to come and look for you – make it a week after the date you are given so that you can iron out any problems. This means your blog will be on hiatus for 2 weeks, but it is worth it. The day before the move, make the blog private so that you don’t get any comments on the site.
You also have to transfer all your posts and comments and photos from wordpress.com to wordpress.org. Downloading them is a breeze – all you do is click the tools bar on the right hand side of your dashboard screen and select the export feature. This will download an .xml file to your hard drive. Mine was over 20mb! and it was saved automatically in the downloads file.
The default upload limit is 2mb so you will need to have this increased. Once the upload limit has been increased you click on tools, then import, and then wordpress, and follow the instructions. You must remember to choose the option to download & import file attachments so that everything is transferred. The same upload feature is available for other blogging platforms as well.
Before you make your new blog live, download the jetpack plugin as this will transfer all your subscribers and features from .com. I do not have all the features activated but make sure you activate the ones you want before you carry on.
Good luck for those of you who are going to do this, and please do not hesitate to ask me for help.
What I blogged:
- one year ago – Review: Cooking With Alvin Quah
So kind of you to put all this information together Tandy, thank you.
🙂 Mandy xo
My pleasure Mandy 🙂
Yes! I’ve been waiting for this post. I am still deciding whether to move to WordPress.org but if I do, I’m sure this post will be invaluable. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
Shout if you need any help migrating, if you decide to do so!
So kind of you to post about all this experience! Have a Happy and Prosperous New Year!
It is my pleasure Katerina, and thank you for the visit 🙂
I’m thinking about moving as well. But I’ve not decided yet. Good luck 🙂
If you need help Marta, let me know 🙂
Some great advice here, thanks Tandy!
my pleasure Tanya 🙂
You made that sound so easy! Maybe one day. Thanks Tandy.
It was easy in hindsight 🙂 Have a great day Tammy 🙂
Thank you for this my friend, I plan to do this in my holidays after finishing school 😀
Cheers
CCU
Good luck, and let me know if you need any help!
Thanks for these great tips!
My pleasure!
Such a thoughtful and useful post, Tandy. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make the move as I’m not technical and “it all sounds Greek to me”. 🙂
you have to be a bit technically minded but not much as a lot of things are ‘done for you’ and wordpress do offer a transfer service 🙂
These are GREAT tips, Tandy…when I moved mine to a self-hosted place, I cried. It was crazy for me and I wish I had this handy dandy helper then, lol. Happy New Year!!!
I had some issues which is why I wrote this post. it would have been so helpful to me in June 🙂
Thanks for the tips!
my pleasure 🙂
Great info Tandy and it could not have come at a more perfect time as far as I am concerned! Are you glad you made the move? If you had to do it again, what would you have done differently? I was informed about the jetpack plugin for followers but I still have concerns. I have my posts/data in a new QA data base now in my new theme and it is going to take some time for cleanup and getting things the way I would like it.
Hi, I will send you an email with some of my thoughts. I don’t regret it at all! This blog was what I would have done had I known this at the beginning 🙂
Thanks for the info Tandy! It sounds complicated… 😉
Cheers!
G
Parts of it is! Have a great day 🙂
Thanks for this very useful post! Great post!
It is my pleasure Sophie 🙂
Smashing tips, Tandy. What are the advantages of being .org instead of .com?
Good idea for another blog post – the advantage of being on .org is that you can accept advertising 🙂
That’s very helpful Tandy! I’m sure lots of people appreciate this 🙂
It is something I would have appreciated when I moved 🙂
Wonderful post and tips–thank you
My pleasure Usha 🙂
Such a helpful post, Tandy . I wish I’d seen something like this before I did the move!
Me too Amanda, which is why I wrote it. The techies like to keep the behind the scene stuff to themselves 🙂
Is this your .org site now.. I’m on org.. It is a litle more difficult as you can’t do a few things available on the .com site.. But still good!!
Hi, this is my .org site. What can’t you do here that you can do on .com? Have a great day 🙂
Hi Tandy, Thanks for this.
I will have to remember this post if I decide to transfer. It was very considerate of you to put it up.
It is my pleasure. I hope to do a few more this year on this theme 🙂
Thanks soo soo much!! I’m thinking of doing this but completely terrified. I’ve even considered hiring someone to do it for me. Part of my fear is that the style of blog I use is not on wordpress.org.. so I don’t know what theme to choose. Which server host did you choose and are you happy with them?? xx
Hi Barbara. Would you like me to check to see if your theme is on .org? Pop me an email to let me know. WordPress offer a guided transfer which is worthwhile if your budget allows it. My host is Take a Byte here in South Africa and I’m very happy with them. If you could use them it would be fantastic! Have a great day xox
Good advice!
Especially about the Plug-in, it is such a pity to lose things like followers, categories, tags, etc.
Losing my followers was the worst!
Your flatbread looks absolutely wonderful! Perfect with any meal or as a snack!
Thank you so much, and thank you for the visit 🙂
Thanks again Tandy xox
Anything I can do to help just shout xx