How To Move Your WordPress Blog To Another Host
Finding the perfect webhost is more or less similar to a general love story. While there are cases of love at first sight, most people have to go through disappointments and broken hearts before finding the one that we want to spend the rest of our life with.
There are also stories about finding your true soulmate while already with somebody else. Should you break up and leave your current partner to be with “the one”? Or should you keep the current compromised relationship just for the sake of avoiding complications?
Even though changing webhosts might be less complicated than changing spouses, it is still problematic. And it’s even more difficult if you have a long established blog hosted there. Moving databases could be a nightmare for the common people like the most of us.
Fortunately, if your blog is WordPress, it’s easy enough to learn how to move a WordPress blog from one webhost to another.
The Manual MethodBy default, WordPress provides its users with a method to transfer the blog should circumstances require it. This feature is called “Export – Import” and is located under the “Tools” tab on the sidebar.
To save your data to be used later in another blog, click the “Export” link.
You will arrive in the “Export” page. The explanation paragraph basically explains that the exported file you are about to create is in WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR).
Choose the author from the drop down menu. If your blog has multiple authors and you only want to export posts from one of them, you can use this option. Other than that, just leave the option to “All Authors” and click the “Download Export File” button.
Your browser will download the data in an “.xml” file. Keep the file somewhere save to be used later.
Now, assuming that you already have another WordPress blog ready in another host, we’ll continue to the next step.
Within your new WordPress blog, click the “Import” link on the sidebar under the “Tools” tab, and you will arrive at the “Import” page. There’s a list of import options showing types of blogs that you can import your data from. Choose “WordPress” at the very bottom of the list.
At the next page, you’ll have to determine the location of the data file. Click “Choose File” button and browse around. After you find the file, continue by clicking the “Upload file and import” button.
That is pretty much it. The process can’t go easier than that. You’ve just learned how to move a WordPress blog from one location to another.
The method can also be used to add posts from one blog to another. Very useful if you want to merge several blogs into one. Another possible usage is to back up the data of your blog(s).
The Automated BackupThe steps explained above are quick and simple, but it has one disadvantage: the process is manual. It means that if the blog that you are taking the data from is updated after you do the export, you’ll have to repeat everything all over again, manually.
There’s another option that you can do to automate the backup process: using a WordPress plugin called “WP-DB-Backup“.
After installing and activating the plugin, it’s immediately available in the sidebar under the “Tools” tab.
On the Backup page, go to the “Scheduled Backup” section at the bottom of the page. You can choose the backup schedule according to your preferences, write down the email address to send the backup to, and click “Schedule backup” button to save the settings.
The backup of your blog will arrive in your inbox regularly according to your chosen schedule.
However, the format of the backup is “.sql” (compressed into “.sql.gz“). This requires an extra effort in restoring the database to your blog and can’t be done from within the WordPress blog like the previous method.
To import the backup, log into your webhost account and go to phpMyAdmin (or another similar database management that your host uses), click the “Import” tab, choose the database file by clicking the “Choose File” button, and finally click “Go” button to start importing.
How to move other WordPress filesAfter done with transferring the soul of your blog, you might want to continue with the body. This includes all the themes and plugins that you use in the previous WordPress installation.
Basically, the least thing that you want to do is to copy everything inside the “wp-content” folder from your old WordPress folder to the new one. After this step, your plugins and themes will be available in your blog’s new home. You can use your chosen FTP client (offline or online) for this task.
If you want to make sure everything is completely transferred, you could just safely copy everything inside one WordPress folder to another. This is similar to the process of upgrading WordPress manually. But please note that:
Now you have finished copy almost everything of your WordPress blog from your old host to the new one, the last step that you should do is to configure the settings of the new WordPress blog to mimic the old. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any way to do this automatically. If one of you readers know the shortcuts, please feel free to share using the comment below.
Have you ever moved your WordPress blog from one host to another? Do you know other methods of moving your blog? If so, please share using the comments below.
How To Move From Tumblr To WordPress
Tumblr has implemented policy on its adult blogs, estimated at 10% of its 125 million userbase, to de-index them from every kind of search possible . At the same time, Tumblr has removed results for LGBTQ tags such as #gay and Tumblr staff has stated it is to prohibit pornographic content.
Tumblr is not being clear to press or users about these changes or
when they occurred, and users are rightfully confused, upset, angry and
worried about the content they trusted to keep on Tumblr.Also upsetting to users is having Tumblr cut them off from the Tumblr community, other like-minded bloggers, and the outside world. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done to put people whose Tumblrs have been maked (fairly or not) as "adult" back into the Tumblr community. For these 12.5 million bloggers, it's over and gone.
Tumblr does not provide its users a way to export or back up their Tumblr.
Here is how to move from Tumblr to a self-hosted Wordpress website.
Remember, this is different than moving to Wordpress.org, which prohibits adult content.
A self-hosted website is the safest thing that a content creator or businessperson can do - you will have full control over your content and the functionality of your blog.
Step 1: Get your own domain name and hosting There are a few domain hosts that are sex-positive and don't have a problem with adult or racy content.
DreamHost reached out to me on Twitter to say they're simple to use and sex-positive, and are totally happy to take all the business that Blogger is about to throw away — because you know that if given the option, tens of thousands of people would pay Blogger for a premium account to avoid the hassle of packing everything up and moving out by Monday.
DreamHost is very sex-positive, and has a one-click WordPress installation.
The same goes for the easy, one-step Wordpress install at Hostgator.
GoDaddy is also an option, with one-click WordPress installs and pricing plans with customer support, but keep in mind that sometimes it's a Bad Daddy .
If you have bought a domain at another registrar like Dotser, you just need to do a DNS Transfer. Follow the instructions at both your registrar and your new domain host (HostGator, DreamHost, GoDaddy).
Step 2: Set up your WordPress Log into your new account at DreamHost, HostGator, or GoDaddy and follow the WordPress setup instructions; the set-up will take you about five minutes.
Click to install WordPress on your site: you will see entry fields where you will enter your blog’s URL and place to enter your name, your email address and the title of your blog. Fill these in and click ‘install now.'
Check your email for a confirmation, and then log in to your new WordPress blog. That's it!
Step 3: Import your Tumblr Inside your WordPress dashboard, go to Tools > Import and look for the Tumblr Importer.
Click on it. You will be prompted to enter the email address you used to sign up for Tumblr and your Tumblr password. Click Connect to Tumblr.
The importer automagically fetches your Tumblr blog; you'll be able to watch the progress of the imports on the import page. It also gives you the option to import as many of your Tumblrs as you want by clicking Import This Blog.
When your import is done, the system will email you to let you know.
Custom Domains
If your Tumblr has a custom domain (sample.com instead of sample.tumblr.com), you'll need to disable the custom domain while the import is being processed. Go to your Tumblr dashboard, click Settings and un-check the Use a Custom Domain checkbox.
Step 4: Make yourself findable again Set up Sitemapping so users can find you - this will never be out of your control or taken away from you again.
Now, go tell all your friends where you are. You can set up auto-posting from WordPress to your Tumblr as well, so your followers left on Tumblr don't miss a single post.
I use IFTT to do a number of auto-post functions with different social networks (like posting my Foursquare photos onto my Flickr), and while I haven't tried WordPress to Tumblr, you might want to give it a shot.
WordPress has thousands of plugins (they're like apps you can add to your blog for features like galleries, sharing, and more), most of them are free, and more plug-ins are created by WordPress developers every day. There are also about a million themes to choose from, with lots of great free ones and themes for Tumblelogs.
The only thing you won't have anymore is a Tumblr 'reblog' button.
There are also WordPress mobile apps for blogging, and they have more features that Tumblr's.
On a closing note, I'm beyond disappointed with what happened between Yahoo's purchase of Tumblr and the de-indexing of adult blogs (and I'm livid about the abysmal way Tumblr has handled the #gay and #lesbian tagging debacle - I've seen many angy tweets form LGBT people saying 'hey Yahoo/Tumblr, my existence isn't porn.')
De-indexing blogs and taking steps like removing the Erotica category is the next best thing to banning adult content and deleting adult blogs altogether.
The anger and disbelief around the Internet, and around the world on this topic shows that the Internet is just fine with human sexuality, porn and adult content - so why can't Yahoo, Facebook and Google?
It's just interesting, as a citizen of the Internet, to see the Internet evolve into a state where our biggest trolls are companies and governments.
UPDATE: See also: How to Build a Tumblr-style Blog with WordPress by Brian Gardner (via Ms. Naughty; her Twitter account is NSFW).
Please use this space to share your thoughts or to leave a comment. Thank you again for showing interest in my work. I look forward to reading what you have to say.