In our Blogger to WordPress migration tutorial, one of our readers asked us for the step-by-step guide on how to move blogger website from custom domain to WordPress. Blogger allows you to use third-party custom domains as well as Google domains with your blog. In this article, we will show you how to move custom domain blogger blog to WordPress.
Note: If you're looking to move a regular Blogger subdomain blog to WordPress, check out our guide on how to switch from Blogger to WordPress.
Only use this tutorial if you are trying to move a Blogger site on a custom domain to WordPress.
Before we get started, it's important to note that this guide is for your own WordPress blog. See our guide on the difference between the self-hosted WordPress.org site and the free WordPress.com blog.
To get started, you will need a WordPress hosting provider to set up your own WordPress website. We recommend Bluehost because they are an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider, and they will give WPBeginner users a 50% discount.
If you want a Bluehost alternative, check out Siteground, which also offers the same special offer to WPBeginner users.
Blogger allows you to use any domain name registered by a third party. US-based users can also use a domain registered with Google Domains.
When you first set up the domain pointing to your Blogger blog, you were asked to add CNAME and A records to your domain's DNS records. You'll need to delete those records and add your WordPress host's DNS settings.
You can get the DNS settings required by your WordPress hosting provider from their documentation or support websites. A typical DNS nameserver looks like this:
NS1.Bluehost.com
NS2.Bluehost.com
In this guide, we will show you how to update your DNS settings on GoDaddy. If you have registered your domain with another registrar, don't worry. The basic configuration is the same on all domain registrars.
Important: DNS changes can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or even two days to fully propagate. During this time, you can access your Blogger blog by signing in to your account.
Change DNS settings in GoDaddy
Sign in to your GoDaddy account and click the Manage button next to domains. Click the gear icon next to your domain and then select Manage DNS.
You will see your domain information page. Next, you need to click on the DNS zone file. This is where all the DNS level records for your domain are stored.
On the DNS Zone File page, you need to locate the A record and CNAME aliases you added for your Blogger blog and delete them. Click the Save Changes button to apply your changes.
The next step is to set up the nameservers for your WordPress hosting provider. Go back to the DNS management page for your domain, and then click manage in the nameservers section.
On the next page, you need to click on custom and then click on the Edit nameservers link to add your new WordPress hosts nameservers.
Click the Save button for the DNS changes to take effect.
The original blogspot.com address of your Bloggger blog is redirecting users to your custom domain. Since we've changed the domain settings, we need to remove this from Blogger as well.
Simply log in to your Blogger account and go to Settings »Basic page. In the posts section, click the cross icon to cancel the redirect.
If your domain's DNS has now propagated, you can now install WordPress on your hosting provider.
If your domain is registered with a third party service other than your web host, then you will need to add hosting for the domain. For example, at BlueHost, you will add your domain as an addon domain through cPanel unless it is the primary domain on your account.
After adding the domain to your new host, the next step is to install WordPress. Follow the instructions in our comprehensive WordPress installation tutorial.
After the successful installation of WordPress on your custom domain, you are ready to import content from your Blogger blog.
Before you can import content into WordPress, you must first export it from your Blogger blog.
Blogger allows you to export content in an XML file.
Log in to your Blogger blog and visit Other Settings page. Under the blog tools, click the Export blog link.
This will open a popup window where you need to click the Download Blog button.
Depending on the size of the file, it may take a few seconds or a few minutes. Once you have your data, it's time to import it into your WordPress site.
Log in to your WordPress admin area and visit Tools »Import page. There you will see a list of importers for different services. You must click on Blogger to install the Blogger importer.
This will open a popup window where you need to click on the Insall button. WordPress will now download and install the Blogger Importer plugin for you. Once you have finished installing the plugin, you need to click Activate Plugin and the Run Importer link to continue.
On the Import Blogger screen, WordPress will ask you to upload the XML file. Simply click the Choose File button and upload the XML file you downloaded earlier. Click the Upload File and Import button to continue.
WordPress will now import your blogger posts, once you are done you will be prompted to assign an author to the imported posts. You can assign your blogger posts to an existing author or create a new one.
Congratulations! You have successfully imported your Blogger blog into WordPress. However, you still need to make sure that you don't lose any search rankings and that visitors to your old blog can easily access the same content on your new WordPress website.
WordPress comes with a feature that allows you to set up an SEO friendly URL structure. However, since you're importing content from Blogger, you'd like your URL structure to be as close to Blogger's URL structure as possible. To configure permalinks you need to go to Settings »Permalinks and paste this into the custom structure field:
/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
You have successfully redirected your blog from Blogger to WordPress. However, users who have subscribed to Blogger's RSS feed will no longer receive updates.
You need to redirect feed requests to your WordPress sources. This can be easily achieved by editing the .htaccess file in the root folder of your WordPress site. If you can't find your .htaccess file, check out this tutorial.
Start by connecting to your WordPress site using an FTP client. You will need to enable the 'Show hidden files' option in your FTP client settings. If you're using Filezilla, you'll find this option in the Server menu.
Once you are connected to your website, you will find the .htaccess file in the root directory of your WordPress site. You must edit this file and paste the following code before any other code in the file.
RewriteEngine en RewriteRule atom.xml / feed? [L, R = 301] RewriteRule rss.xml / feed? [L, R = 301] RewriteRule ^ feeds / posts /?.*$ / feed? [L, R = 301] RewriteRule ^ feeds / comments /?.*$ / comments / feed? [L, R = 301]
Save your changes and upload the .htaccess file back to the server. Blogger feed subscribers will now be redirected to your WordPress site feed.
WordPress comes with thousands of beautiful themes and extremely powerful plugins.
See our guide on how to choose the perfect theme for your WordPress site. As for plugins, take a look at the WPBeginner template to learn about the plugins and tools we use on this website.
As a new WordPress user you will often need help. WPBeginner is the largest WordPress resource site for beginners. See how you can make the most of WPBeginner's free resources.
We hope this article helped you move your blog from custom domain blog to WordPress. You can also see our list of 40 useful tools to manage and grow your WordPress blog.
If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe to our WordPress YouTube Channel video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
