Move data from one blog to a WordPress blog

Did you know that with the new 2.1+ version of WordPress you can easily move Data such as comments, and posts from one WP blog to another?

Lets say that you want to move files from a site called mydomainA.com to another called mydomainB.com. Now it doesn’t mater if these blogs are on the same domain as in myblog.com/blog or blog.myblog.com or different domains altogether. What matters is that both must be using the same version of WordPress.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Make sure your blogs are using WP 2.1 + and that both are using the same version – if they aren’t you need to upgrade your WordPress version first.

2. Back up your files on each blog!

You can backup your blog in two fairly simple ways:

A. Use a WordPress Backup plugin and download the backup to your computer

B. Or, If your web host uses C-Panel Login to your C-Panel and click on the icon marked BackUp. You can do a full backup of your home directory and or you can download copies of your MySql database(s).

Personally – If I’m doing a big job like a major upgrade or transferring files I backup with the plugin AND with the C-Panel backup service. Better safe than sorry is what I always say.

If you did happen to download the WordPress backup plugin I would seriously consider using it to backup your blog at least once week. My former web host shut down my account at the beginning of February without notice and for a short while I didn’t know if I could get backups of my sites. It was a very scary and stressful time. Be smarter than I was – backup your sites regularly!

Back to transferring data such as posts from one blog to another …

Now that you are done upgrading WordPress if you needed to, and backing up your sites you can begin to transfer your files from one site to another.

I’m describing this as if it’s two wordpress blogs, but WordPress has made it easier to transfer files from say blogger or a Typepad blog into a WordPress blog using similar methods. However, since I don’t use other blogging platforms I’m only going to discuss the procedure for moving data from one WordPress blog to another:

3. Open up the ADMIN area of both of your wordpress blogs

4. In the MANAGE section of mydomainA.com (this is the blog you want to move files from) select EXPORT and download the export file to your computer.

5. In the MANAGE section of mydomainB.com (the blog you want to move files to) select IMPORT, then select WordPress from the list and find the export file that you just saved to your computer and import it into the mydomainA.com blog.

If all has gone well you should have all the posts from MydomainB.com in your MydomainA.com blog. Easy eh?

If things didn’t go well at least you have the backups that you made before hand. You did make the backup files didn’t you? You can re-install your backups if needed through C-Panels MySQL section. It’s a bit complicated and since everything hopefully went well I’m not going to describe how to do that in this post.

This is one of the features that I like best about the new WordPress 2.1+ version. They’ve made it so much easier to transfer files from one blog to another, or to even use the export feature as a method of backing up your files.

I hope that you’ve found this post helpful.