It’s not too much trouble to move your blog from the free, hosted WordPress.com platform to your own web server. When you have your blog on your own server, we say that it is self-hosted to note the difference from having it hosted on WordPress.com. Some folks will call this using WordPress.org, but WordPress.org is actually where you download the software from. I don’t want to argue about names, but I want to make sure we all know what we’re talking about.
I wanted to write this post because this is a common question I get. I receive several inquiries about this a month, so for the benefit of anyone seeking answers, I wanted to give an overview. If you want a detailed step-by-step tutorial, that’s not what this is.
When you have a blog hosted on WordPress.com, they take care of a lot of technical stuff for you. You never have to mess with installations or upgrades. You don’t have to create databases. You never have to deal with domains (unless you want to). All you have to do is create your blog, pick a theme (the look or design of your blog, sometimes called a template), and start posting.
Nothing could be better? Right?
Except that…
- Soon or later, you find out that out of all five billion themes available, you don’t really like any of them, but you have little to no say (or skill) in customizing all but a very few of them.
- Sooner or later, you find out that you can’t put AdSense or any kind of web widget on your blog that runs on the JavaScript language.
- Sooner or later, you discover that all the cool functionality other blogs have from something called plugins is verboten to you on WordPress.com.
Plus, having the blog separate from your main site messes up search results because you’re sending people to two different places. It sorta weakens your search strength.
Lastly, the blog is simply out of your control. Other people could decide to try and get your blog banned, or WordPress.com might make some decision in the future that you will not be happy with, and then what would you do?
If you were wondering why so many bloggers recommend that you host your own blog, I hope now you can see why a little more clearly. Of course the problem with such a move is that it requires technical skills and knowledge which many beginners don’t have (and frankly, don’t want). Unless you can do this yourself, you will probably need to pay someone to do it for you.
Here’s how the overall process works:
- Make sure the server meets the minimum requirements to run WordPress
- Delete all the spam comments on the WordPress.com blog
- Export your posts and all data from WordPress.com
- If needed, create a MySQL database on the new server
- Install and configure WordPress on your own web server
- Import the WordPress data
- Install theme(s)
- Install and configure additional plugins
- Repoint the domain name (if you had your own to begin with), so that when people visit they get the new self-hosted blog location instead of the old WordPress.com location
These exact steps are different for different hosting companies’ control panels and so forth. That’s why this couldn’t be an exact step-by-step tutorial, even if I wanted it to be. I do not recommend using your web host’s “easy installation” of WordPress. It will likely not be the latest version (important for security reasons) and you have less control over it.
There can be a few “gotchas” along the way, such as:
- Database issues (WordPress stores all of its posts and other information in a database, so problems with this can be frustrating and difficult)
- Domain name issues (your “dot com name”)
- Settings on the web server may not be correct
- Links in old posts that worked fine at WordPress.com now broken
How long does the entire migration process take? Well, I can only speak for myself, but if all goes smoothly I can usually do it in two or three hours. Your web hosting company may also be able to help you with this via technical support.
I’ve tried to make this as beginner-friendly an overview as possible. If there’s anything you don’t understand or if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below with your general questions. Be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss any updates!
Photo by The Muuj
34 Comments
“having the blog separate from your main site … weakens your search strength.”
This alone is reason to run a blog on your own site …
I’m glad you wrote this post because it’s important that people understand the vast difference between the two platforms. For anyone deciding between WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress, here’s a cautionary tale:
I had a WordPress.com blog that was becoming quite popular. I had even had a post featured on the WordPress.com home page. One day I saw a big red note in my blog’s admin area that WordPress had an issue with one of my posts. So I contacted them. After many days, I was told they didn’t like one of the links on a particular page and thought it was spam (article marketing, presumably). They didn’t tell me which link, but I assumed it was the one that pointed to my boyfriend’s Web site because he had co-authored an article with me.
I wrote to explain why the link was there and thought all was fine. Then about three weeks later, I awoke one morning to find a 24-point type message displayed in place of my home page that said my blog had been removed for violation of the WordPress terms of service. I had no idea whether it had been completely deleted or if I could ever access it again. This ban went on for about 30 hours until someone in WordPress customer service finally answered one of my frantic e-mails asking for reinstatement.
The blog ultimately was reinstated but I received only a short note to tell me so — with no apology or acknowledgment of the havoc the ban might have caused.
As a result, I’m now on self-hosted WordPress. The process of moving the blog wasn’t fun, but now that it’s done I couldn’t be happier. No one can ever take my blog from me again!
@ Carla - Thanks for sharing your story, Carla! It often takes a problem for people to realize how important it is to be in charge of their own stuff. Unfortunately, this creates new problems because you have to either hire someone (like me) or learn how to do it yourself.
Ultimately, it’s very empowering to do all this yourself, but it takes time and the learning curve can be steep and unforgiving.
I am a big believer in installing your own Wordpress site. With a little effort Wordpress can serve as a capable CMS for most people’s needs.
When I started tinkering with Wordpress, it helped me to learn that I could install it locally on my Mac using a program called MAMP. (Google: MAMP Wordpress local install)
Why would was this helpful? It allowed me to really mess up my site while experimenting without having the site live online. I ironed out the kinks locally before uploading the whole site.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to tell my long tale of woe. Just to clarify: I’m not bashing WordPress.com. Overall, I think they do a great job and provide a powerful free product. They got me started in blogging and for that I’m grateful.
Caveat emptor is all I’m saying.
And about that steep and unforgiving thing you mentioned — oh yeah, definitely. The process isn’t for sissies.
Jeff’s right about the benefits of being able to mess around with a local copy of your WordPress blog, so as not to subject your readers to the (occasionally disastrous) tinkering we all seem to end up wanting to do! And for PC users, the equivalent to the MAMP he mentioned is called XAMPP (Google: XAMPP Wordpress local install).
Great post! I’ve been collecting these types of posts before I move my blog over, as I want to be extra careful to do it right the first time, so I don’t have to go back and correct my mistakes.
What about redirects? All over the net they’ll be links to my OLD blog. Is there a simple way to have all those links redirect to the NEW blog?
Thanks!
@ Erica - Since you don’t own the wordpress.com domain, you have no way of redirecting it anywhere else. This is one of those issues that makes people say that if they had to do it all over again, they would’ve done it this way from the beginning!
Erica, I ran across the same issue. Someone recently told me about an underhanded workaround you can do that involves getting WordPress.com to host your new domain name, which connects it to the old blog so it can redirect. I don’t know the details because I didn’t go that route. I wouldn’t recommend it anyway, because if WordPress catches you doing it, your blog is toast. Actually, both the new and the old blog would be at risk.
I ended up pasting a permalink on every page and post of my WordPress.com blog to the corresponding page or post on the new blog. It was time-consuming and exhausting, but it has resulted in traffic coming over from the old blog while the new blog builds its own traffic.
I found it was worth the effort, even though I bitched and moaned every step of the way.
Michael and Carla- thanks so much for the feedback. I’m glad to know I won’t lose the old traffic!!!
@ Michael,
Very well written post today, thanks very much.
Seriously dude, you are awesome, and at the same time you’d better start wearing a tinfoil hat.
I’m thinking Harry & James, growing tired of not yet seeing the *awesome theme* they designed for me, implanted the idea for this post in your head.
(Just kidding, I know you came up with the idea on your own, but I still need to keep working away here and get this old blog transferred and running on the hosted service… need to show off the great design the MwP made for me)
@ Brett - Looking forward to it!
@ Michael - soon, soon… was working away at it last night - and I think that I’m of a mind to just let it out now and fix it as I go. Yep, I think I’ll do that tonight. Damn the torpedoes…
i agree, run your own site
Great post Michael - thanks!
One thing I did want to mention - because we have just had huge dramas doing this ourselves - is that WordPress.com does allows its blogs to be redirected to your own self-managed domain, for a fee of $10/year. (This is managed within the WordPress administration dashboard, select “Upgrades” and then “Domains”.)
The only problem with this is that it uses a 302 (temporary) redirect instead of the 301 (permanent) redirect that Google prefers…so yep, you lose your links.
I agree that you really should set up your own self hosted blog up front - because the day will come that you want to move, and then it gets tricky.
Ah where was this post a few months ago! haha.
I am an expert now though and kind of glad I figured it all out on my own.
good tips.
Great tutorial, Michael, as usual. I’ve chosen self-hosted from the start and never had the hassle to move it from Wordpress.com.
On the other hand, if you have a domain name from the start, is no big deal to move, so for simplicity starting on wordpress.com could be a good, low tech, option to beginners.
Michael,
I saw this in my reader yesterday and forgot all about coming to see you. You managed to craft this important message into a useful tutorial that can help bloggers step out of their comfort zone and do the switch over once and for all.
@ Carla: isn’t it a small world.
Like you, I got suspended when I first started blogging on WP.com back in 2005. I built the blog for 3 month only to wake up one day with the suspended notice.
I wasn’t happy and had to learn that it was due to affiliate programs being advertised. Now, if I only had read those TOS.
@Michael, @Erica, @Carla
I just want to follow up on Lid’s comment that it is possible to get WordPress.com to redirect your blog hosted by them to your new domain name.
We found the whole issue confusing, and ended writing an Open Letter to Automattic in frustration and Matt provided the necessary information to get it done.
We also wrote up a step by step guide on how to redirect your WordPress.com blog to your own WordPress hosted blog.
The hardest part was convincing ourselves that it was OK to fiddle with our domains DNS settings, which GoDaddy (our host) made very easy, and I assume other hosts would offer similar screens.
I hope this is of help to others.
You can see this in action as http://blogwell.wordpress.com is automatically redirected to http://blog-well.com.
I also have recently transitioned from Wordpress.com to my own pay server running Wordpress. And just like Carla, my main problem was with redirecting permalinks. I am going to post a how-to regarding this soon, but in a nutshell, there are two things you need to do to make this transition smoother:
1. You need to pay Wordpress.com to use your own domain name. That way, yourblog.com will be redirected to yourblog.wordpress.com. Google will use yourblog.com to establish permalinks.
2. When it’s time to move to your own server, simply move yourblog.com along with it. The only remaining trick is if you decide on a different permalink structure (Wordpress.com uses /year/month/day/postname), and there’s a Wordpress plug-in called Permalink Redirect that takes care of that for you.
I didn’t do 1) so I had to manually link all my old articles to the new permalink.
There was one more issue that required a MySQL query to fix - internal links from my blog posts needed to be edited to reflect the new permalinks. Luckily I found someone who gave me step by step instructions on how to edit the Wordpress MySQL database directly.
@Erica
In case you used static links you need to delete the contents of the .htaccess file and create permalinks again from Wordpress’s admin panel.
I came through the same issue when moving a wordpress website to another host.
Some web Hosts like Nukoo -Affordable Web Hosting can do this for you in a single click. That definitly beats uploading all the files to the webserver and trying to figure it out on your own.
@ Paul - Not really. If the blogger experiences any problems, who will fix them? One-click installs aren’t always up-to-date, which presents a security issue. Without control and access over all your files, you can’t effectively harden your WordPress installation, fight spam comments (which yours almost is, other than to come here and plug your service you’re not contributing to this conversation), or deal with SEO issues. In order to get new plugins and themes–even the one-click upgrade ones–somebody has to come in and to it the “hard way” first. So, sorry, but I’m not going to agree with you at all.
@ Michael - I’ll admit you’re right. I think it’s fine to use one script installs for general blogs for beginners that are unlikely to have a high volume of traffic.
But there are things that a script just can’t do that are nessessary for security. This even includes simple things such as putting a blank HTML (index.htm) file in the plugin’s folder to prevent the server from displaying a list of installed plug-ins (and their versions) to anyone who types the folders URL into their address bar. As far as setting the htaccess and chmod properly it takes a more seasoned user to make sure everything is safe and works properly.
Great tutorial, Michael, as usual. I’ve chosen self-hosted from the start and never had the hassle to move it from Wordpress.com.
Most of the top bloggers advocate that you should only use a self hosting blog.
Great advice and great post.
Thanks for this post, I have been wondering how to point my old wordpress.com to my self-hosted one. I switched over from LiveJournal to WordPress and Love it, esp. hosting my own blog.
I agree that self hosted is always better. I like being in control of my sites, Id hate to have a popular site under the control of some admin at wordpress
I’m right on the verge of doing this. But as a complete Internet novice, I’m quite apprehensive about the technical stuff involved.
I’m really quite happy on wordpress.com right now. I just want (1) the ability to post a few ads w/o violating wordpress policy and (2) more flexibility in picking a theme.
There must be some way for novices such as I to do this w/o learning a whole of lot technical stuff we don’t want to?
For a while now I have been thinking if I should move from blogger to a self-hosted wordpress blog and I can’t decide. Honestly I don’t want to lose my google juice…
@Radu - That Google juice isn’t yours to lose. It never was. That is the sad truth when you don’t own your own site.
@kj - No, there isn’t. You can pay a monthly fee to be able to edit your theme’s CSS file, but you don’t get to upload any theme you want. And the only ads that will ever be on wordpress.com will probably be through their own ad network (which doesn’t yet exist).
I agree with Mad that you can easily redirect your WordPress.com blog to WordPress.org, and http://blog-well.com/ did a great documentation on it.
I just needed to add that after redirecting, you need to edit the default permalinks in your WordPress.org blog (using ver. 2.5.1, not sure with old versions). Otherwise, people will not get to your new blog if they click old links to your WordPress.com posts.
You can read more about it here: http://menoob.com/2008/06/07/redirecting-wordpress-com-to-wordpress-org/.
Thanks sssssoooo much for this post, It led me in the right direction this weekend. Now Im on self hosted and feeling free as a blog -bird..
Thanks again..I’ll be reading
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