Missing pages after importing my site
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Hi!
Last year, I decided to register a domain and migrate my WordPress.com site to BlueHost. (My site is a writing portfolio, not a blog.) While at BlueHost, I made a lot of changes to my site (using WordPress.org). After a year, I decided to migrate my modified site back to WordPress.com. After importing the file, I noticed that several pages were missing. What do you recommend I do to find the missing content?
Thanks!
ChristyThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi!
Last year, I decided to register a domain and migrate my WordPress.com site to BlueHost. While at BlueHost, I made a lot of changes to my site (using WordPress.org). After a year, I decided to migrate my modified site back to WordPress.com. After importing the file, I noticed that several pages were missing. What do you recommend I do to find the missing content?
Thanks!
ChristyThe blog I need help with is sixchimes.wordpress.com.
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Hi Christy,
So a couple of questions:
Are the pages that you are missing from things that you created on your WordPress.org site and are currently not on your WordPress.com site? Or were they pages from your ORIGINAL WordPress.com site that have somehow gone missing everywhere?
Big question: Have you already created a lot (or any really) content here on WordPress.com since migrating everything back?
I ask because if you are really just looking at a fresh migration the easiest thing might be for us to clear out your WordPress.com site, for you to do a fresh export from your WordPress.org site, and then re-import it. It will probably save time (and headaches) in the long run. If that’s not an option however, let me know and we can maybe get more creative.
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Gosh, a fresh migration does sound like the obvious solution! I can’t remember if I’ve tried that yet (it’s possible I tried that a few months ago). But I’m game to try it again.
The missing content I would like to recover is from WordPress.org. And I haven’t really created anything fresh since migrating back to WordPress.com.
I think I’m just a little worried about clearing out my WordPress.com site completely and the potential risk of losing everything. But I suppose I can export the files of those original WordPress.com sites before I delete them. Is that what you would recommend?
Thanks tremendously for talking me through this!
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If you think there’s a chance that you may have created new content on your WordPress.com site then I would actually make things slightly more complex. I would add in a kind of “buffer” site.
Create a test site (all of our sites a free, so it’ll only cost you the 2 minutes it takes to set up), and create an export of your current site and import it in to the new test site. Make sure all of your posts, images, and everything are present.
That way when we clear out your present site you don’t just have an export you have a fully functional site . . . just in case! I know that this seems like an extraneous step, but careful is always better when it comes to moving content around, in my experience.
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Hello again,
I just realized something. Here are 2 things I forgot to mention. (So sorry!) The reason I’m switching back to WordPress.com is because I’m not interested in paying the fees for a domain and hosting.
My hosted WordPress.org site (www.SixChimes.org) IS showing up as a site on my WordPress.com dashboard. But of course it’s still linked to my domain which will expire at the end of Feb. So, I’ve been expecting it to disappear altogether.
But should I be working with that SixChimes.org file that’s on the WordPress.com dashboard? I see the article about domain mapping, but since I don’t want to keep the SixChimes domain, I thought this didn’t apply to my situation.
Clearly, I’m very confused.
Thanks, again!
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No worries at all.
That domain from your WordPress.org site is just there because we are providing more and more abilities for you to control your external sites through this unified dashboard. Once you have everything transferred over (and you’re really sure it’s all there) then you can cancel your old hosting and we’ll remove that domain for you from your dashboard so that it doesn’t cause any confusion.
So yes.
WordPress.com: Still free (as long as you don’t want any of our upgrades, which is totally fine).
I would still recommend you create a staging site into which you import your current WordPress.com site so that you have an active backup. If you’d like, I can do it to spare any confusion.
Once that’s done, you’ll need to grab a new export from your WordPress.org site and we’ll re-import it in to your sixchimes.wordpress.com.
Did that make sense?
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About creating a buffer site…. I think I may have already done that.
My WordPress.com account has 3 sites, all similar content:
1. http://www.SixChimes.org – the hosted site that will expire at the end of the month.
2. cdevillier.wordpress.com – My original WP.com site.
3. SixChimes.Wordpress.com – The imported site from BlueHost.Could site 2 or 3 work as a buffer site?
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Ah, I think I get it!
Ok, I’ll create a buffer site (which is essentially a duplicate of cdevillier.wordpress.com).
Then, I bravely delete SixChimes.Wordpress.com and cdevillier.wordpress.com. (I already exported files of each.)
Is that correct?
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Ish.
DO NOT actually delete those sites please. I will go in and empty them using a tool we have. If you delete them our system locks the blog name down and doesn’t let you use them ever again.
Definitely not something you want to do again!
I would also limit what you put in to the buffer site to one site. So sixchimesbuffer.wordpress.com would only have content from sixchimes.wordpress.com. That way you can easily test to make sure it has all the right content, and if we need to transfer things back and forth we’re not trying to figure out which content goes where.
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Ok, I didn’t delete anything. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I created a buffer site for sixchimes.wordpress.com and cdevillier.wordpress.com and imported their respective content. Now just waiting to hear back from WP when import is complete.
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Ok, everything is imported.
Is there an easy way to test whether all the content migrated correctly to the buffer sites?
I noticed the theme of one site didn’t copy over, but that’s not really an issue for what we’re doing, I guess.
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Absolutely. Perfect. You are a total rockstar. :)
Once those are done importing, go ahead and go through and make sure that all of your content is present in both of the buffer sites. When you are sure that they are, give me the thumbs up and I will use our tool to clear out the original sites.
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Ha! Timing.
The best way is to go and check post, page, and image counts. I’ll go ahead and do that really quickly. One moment.
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It actually looks like there are a few media files missing from each buffer site. Nothing else, just a handful of media files.
Can you tell what is missing/if they’re of any importance? If you can’t tell (and no worries if you can’t), I’ll just clear the buffer sites and redo the import. This is the exact reason why I suggested this system in the first place!
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I think the media files missing aren’t important and can be replaced.
Thumbs up to proceed!
: )
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Are you SURE? Because if you’d like I can redo the export/import for you. Once this is done there’s no real going back. :)
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Yes, please go ahead. I have all the media backed up. And I’m not using some of those files in my library anymore. Time to jump off that cliff!
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I am so sorry about this delay! You must have responded right after I left for the day, because I checked for a message from you right on my way out the door.
I went ahead and cleared out both of your sites. You are now free to do a fresh export from your WordPress.org site(s) and start the madness all over again.
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