Making the Switch from WordPress.com to WordPress.org

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  lauraleewalker · Member · Jan 29, 2011 at 5:33 am

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  Hi, if I decide at some point to make the switch from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, what is the most seamless way to do this (i.e., I want it to look similar, but be able to install WordPress plugins)?

  Thank you!

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  staff-blorbo · Staff · Jan 29, 2011 at 5:43 am

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  First you’ll need to find hosting (some recommendations at http://get.wp.com/hosting/ ) and install WordPress from http://wordpress.org/

  Once you have installed WordPress you can export/import your content following this guide: http://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-a-blog/#moving-to-wordpress-org

  After that, it’s just a matter of installing the same theme and plugins to mimic what you had here.

  Here are a few plugins that you might need:

  Akismet – included with WordPress

  WordPress.com Stats – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/

  Sharedaddy – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sharedaddy/

  Grunion Contact Form – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/grunion-contact-form/

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  timethief · Member · Jan 29, 2011 at 6:35 am

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  @lauraleewalker
  I see you have customized the CSS on the wordpress.com version of the Spring Loaded theme. I hope you understand that the theme and the CSS editing are not exportable. WordPress.com and WordPress.ORG run on different software and at wordpress.com CSS is theme specific.

  Also note that the set of widgets you get with your wordpress.org install will not contain some widgets that are in-house wordpress.com widgets. I’m sharing these two points as sometimes that confuses people when they move a blog.

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  staff-blorbo · Staff · Jan 29, 2011 at 6:42 am

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  You should be able to port over your own custom CSS changes, but it won’t be as easy as custom CSS here.

  You’ll either have to create a child theme just for your custom CSS, or modify the theme’s existing CSS with your custom elements.

  As TT mentioned above, there are some differences between the themes available here and their WordPress.org counterparts, so it’s possible that not everything will look as expected.