Transferring My Website
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Hi,
I have an older existing website that I would like to transfer to WordPress. I have several questions about doing that.1) I have chosen the Free service, but I don’t see where or how I can upload or otherwise transfer my site. How do I do this? Can I do this?
2) And if the answer to that question is no, I would like to know about the $4 a month service, which is still cheaper than paying Hostgator.
a) For The $4 a month service I notice that they are only giving directions to transfer my domain. I don’t want to transfer the domain. I just paid for another year last month. I can point the domain to WordPress servers through GoDaddy like I did before for Hostgator. Where are instructions for doing this?
b)Now the question becomes again, how do I get my actual blog site transferred? I don’t see directions for doing this even on the $4 a month service.
Thanks for your help.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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hi,
1) I have chosen the Free service, but I don’t see where or how I can upload or otherwise transfer my site. How do I do this? Can I do this?
Here is the support page on moving from self-hosted WordPress to WordPress.com:
https://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-from-self-hosted-wordpress-to-wordpress-com/view-all/I can point the domain to WordPress servers through GoDaddy like I did before for Hostgator. Where are instructions for doing this?
To use your domain hosted elsewhere with your WordPress.com site, you will need to change the domain nameservers at your domain host, and point them to WordPress.com nameservers.
Our nameservers are:NS1.WORDPRESS.COM
NS2.WORDPRESS.COM
NS3.WORDPRESS.COMYou will also need to purchase the mapping subscription upgrade via one of our paid plans so that you can map your domain over to your WordPress.com site.
Do note that domain propagation can take up to 72 hours. If you continue to see your underlying wordpress.com URL after that time, try a hard refresh of your browser window and/or empty your browser cache and cookies.For instructions on mapping domain, please visit our support page:
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Thank you for your reply. Good to know the name servers so I can change it on my end. That is fairly easy.
What I still Don’t know is how to download and transfer the actual content of my blog…some 250 posts, pages, and many images to WordPress. This I have never done before and I am clueless how to do it. And I was unable to find any instructions on this at WordPress.com .
Thanks, Yael -
hi,
Here is the support page on moving from self-hosted WordPress to WordPress.com:
https://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-from-self-hosted-wordpress-to-wordpress-com/view-all/ -
Hi there,
If you go to your site’s dashboard and go to Tools ->Export you should see an option to export your content there. That will give you an .xml site with your site content.
That file you can then import to a WordPress.com site at My Site ->Settings ->Import.
The file only contains text content of your site, so not media files, but after the text content finishes importing here, we then transfer over the media files as well. Very important: please don’t switch your domain away from the existing site until you have made sure all content and media files have finished importing to the WordPress.com site.
Also note that should you transfer the domain it will automatically renew as part of that process, so you won’t lose any of the time you’ve already paid for when you renewed at Hostgator, should you decide to do that.
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Hi,
Thanks for your reply. I’m still not sure I understand the process. The instructions seemed to apply to sites hosted by WordPress.org. My site is not. It is a site using a WordPress format hosted on Hostgator.. Are the instructions you gave the same for my WordPress site hosted by Hostgator?
. If the instructions are the same, I have some questions.
. I take it that my first step is to purchase the plan I want, which is the $4 a month plan (ie $48 a year).
. I see you want me to export an xml file of my site, but only the text files. And then import them to WordPress.com.
. But you don’t want me to export the media files. I think I understood you to say you do that part. Since my site is hosted on Hostgator, how do you do that unless I give you passwords, etc.
. This seems a little different than what your website tells me. I understand it to tell me to export an xml file containing everything. Under my website tools menu, I have the option of exporting “All”, “Posts”, “Pages”, or “Media”. Which do I export from my site and then import to WordPress.com?
. Then the website tells me to delete the content from my site, but keep the domain where it is until last.
. Then lastly, I map my domain name to the WordPress.com servers.If the correct instructions are other than as I understand them as noted above, please let me know….particularly the sequencing of events and which files do I really export and then import….”All” or only “Posts and Pages” while you export and import the “Media”? If the latter, what do I need to do to give you access to my Hostgator account?
Thanks for your help.
Yael Ben-Ari -
Hi @yaelbenari1, in our communities we refer to the free software as “WordPress.org” even though you are hosting your own copy at Hostgator. I hope that helps clear up some confusion.
Also, I want to note the instructions in that article do not say anything about deleting your site. There is a screenshot of the settings page that includes the option to delete your site. I’ll see if we can make it more obvious that it’s just an image, though, and not a step you should take.
But in the meantime, don’t delete anything on the Hostgator side until the new site is up and going, and all of the dust is settled. And please check in with support here before deleting things on this side, too.
I recommend taking this one step at a time. Can you start with the Export step listed here? Let us know when you’ve got that.
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