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Importing Content into WordPress from other sites

Shaumik Daityari | Jun 23,2013 |   No Comments |

Category: Beginner

Although many would start their sites on WordPress, what about the others who want to move their already existing blogging site to WordPress. WordPress supports importing content if they are in properly formatted XML (Extensible Markup Language). Fortunately, you would not have to code much as there are plugins available for this purpose.

Notes before starting imports:
The blog content would be exported from your existing site as an XML file and you would then import the generated XML file to a WordPress plugin to get the content in your new site. Since WordPress works in PHP and PHP sets a file upload limit, it might not work at times if the file size is very large. By default, the limit for file uploads is 2 MB. To change it, you would need to access your php.ini file, and search the following line:

upload_max_filesize = 2M

Set it to the desired value. Also note that if you set a very high limit here, the Apache file upload limit might not allow the uploads.

Some importers, however, perform these operations in the background and do not involve file uploads. In those cases, you do not need to fiddle with any PHP or Apache settings.

Import from Blogger:

Log into to the WordPress admin (http://wordpress-path/wp-admin/) and select Tools → Import. You would find a list of tools. Click on Blogger and then click on Install to download and install the plugin.

You will see the following screen when the installation is complete.

Click on ‘Activate Plugin and Run Importer’

Click on Authorize.

Select ‘Grant Access‘.

You should be able to see a list of your blogger blogs. Note that for all your private Blogger blogs, it would show errors. Ignore them for the time being. However, if you want to import your private blog posts, make them public in blogger and re-run the importer. Alternately, you could export the posts as I have described in the second process.

Click import on any of them to start the import. You should be able to see the progress in the progress bar.

You can also set authors for individual posts once the import is complete.

After the import is done, check your posts to ensure that the have been successfully imported.

A second way of importing is to first export the posts and then import them in WordPress by uploading the XML file.

To export the posts, go to Blogger Home, select your blog.

Under Settings, select the ‘Other’ sub-category. Select ‘Export Blog’ from Blog Tools.

Click ‘Download Blog’ from the dialog box that appears and save the generated xml file.

Next, go to your Import Tools in WordPress again and select the exported XML file for upload.

Click ‘Upload file and import’.

The advantage of exporting your content and then importing is that even drafts are transferred. Also, exporting private blogs are beneficial in this way because it doesn’t involve making the posts public.

Import from Tumblr:

Log into to the WordPress admin (http://wordpress-path/wp-admin/) again and select Tumblr from the list available at Tools → Import. Click Install to install the plugin.

After installation, click ‘Activate and run plugin’.

You need to provide an OAtuth Consumer Key and a Secret Key for the process to take place. You need to register a Tumblr application in order to use these. Head over to the application registration link of Tumblr to register your application.

In the form, Application Name, Application website and Default callback URL are required fields. Fill in your WordPress website as the application website and the default callback URL. In this example, I use http://localhost/wordpress/ as my WordPress path.

After registration, you are taken to the following page with the OAuth Consumer Key and Secret Key, the fields required for the WordPress plugin. Note that you need to click ‘Show Secret Key’ to display the secret key.

Fill in those details in the plugin and click ‘Connect to Tumblr’. If everythng goes well, you should see the following screen.

Click ‘Authorize the Application’ and you would be taken to a confirmation page in Tumblr.

Click ‘Allow’. WordPress would then connect to the blog showing you the blogs posts in your tumblr blog.

Click on ‘Import this blog’ and wait patiently as the posts are imported.

Check your posts to make sure they were imported properly.

Importing from WordPress:

Log into to the WordPress admin (http://wordpress-path/wp-admin/) again and select WordPress from the list available at Tools → Import. Click Install to install the plugin.

After installation, click ‘Activate and run plugin’.

To export your old WordPress data, go to WordPress admin of your old site and click on Tools → Export.

Select ‘All content’ and click ‘Download Export File’.

Select the exported XML file containing the data of all your posts into the WordPress Importer, and click ‘Upload file and import’.

You would be asked to confirm the authors for the imported posts in the screen below.

Select an appropriate option and click ‘Submit’. You can confirm that the posts have been uploaded properly by checking the list of posts.

I would take farewell by wishing you the best of luck with your data import. After all, evolving is important in today’s world and choosing WordPress is a good option, considering its popularity and rate of development.

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