Transferring sites from weebly

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  lucasmarston · Member · Nov 11, 2015 at 6:03 am

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  I have two websites that I built over at Weebly, one domain purchased with GoDaddy and the second with Weebly. I am looking to move both of these sites over to WordPress and I hear that this process is an absolute nightmare. I understand that I would have to move the site who’s domain I bought with Weebly over to a different server that I would then point to WordPress. Am I able to have the site built and ready before doing this though?

  My goal would be to develop them completely in WordPress with all my proper links and everything in place ready to go, and then just transfer over my hosting and pick up where I left off. Is there someone who can give me an outline on how to do this as painlessly as possible? Am I able to start building the site and have all my ducks in a row before before purchasing “mapping” or anything else?

  Ideally I would like to continue working on my off page SEO without this switch having a negative effect on my rankings. Just a POOF, now I’m on WordPress. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks so much. Simple neanderthal-like answers would be ideal too…:)

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  whitneymcchane · Member · Nov 20, 2015 at 3:46 am

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  I wish I could help you – I am seeking the same help!

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  staff-happychia · Staff · Nov 25, 2015 at 7:58 am

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  @lucasmarston, @whitneymcchane

  Glad that you both decided to switch to WordPress :)

  There are two flavors of WordPress, .com and .org (aka self-hosted). You will find the difference between these two flavors here:
  https://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

  Your move process depends on which flavor of WordPress would you prefer. Please read the difference and let me know your preference so I can guide you from there.

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  whitneymcchane · Member · Nov 25, 2015 at 6:18 pm

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  Hi staff-happychia, definitely .org for me… I have a good blog that is turning into a business so I want to be able to incorporate all the amazing features your community has developed. Thank you so very much for your time and response!!! Also, happy Thanksgiving. :-)

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  whitneymcchane · Member · Nov 25, 2015 at 6:19 pm

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  Sorry I meant “food blog” not “good blog” :-)

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  lucasmarston · Member · Nov 25, 2015 at 7:16 pm

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  I’d be going to .com. What I decided to do was to build from scratch in WordPress and I’ll soon be transferring over the domain from Weebly. I’m just curious if there is a way of keeping my backlinks as the page URLs from Weebly end in .html and do not in WordPress.

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  staff-happychia · Staff · Nov 28, 2015 at 7:17 pm

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  @whitneymcchane

  If you wish to self-host your WordPress, i.e. use to .org version, https://wordpress.org/support/ is the best place to get help. Check various forums to the right of the page.

  There are also various sites like wpbeginner.com etc. to help you get started with WordPress.org. I found this post that I thought could be useful to you: http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-properly-move-from-weebly-to-wordpress/

  @lucasmarston

  WordPress.com doesn’t accept incoming domain transfers. i.e. you can’t move the domain you have purchased from Weebly to WordPress.com. However you can map your domain to your WordPress.com blog.

  You will find more information about Domain Mapping here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/map-existing-domain/

  Domain Mapping is an additional $14 USD per year you pay to WordPress.com besides the cost of domain you pay to your registrar from you whom you have purchased the domain.

  I’m just curious if there is a way of keeping my backlinks as the page URLs from Weebly end in .html and do not in WordPress.

  I did not quite understand this. Could you please elaborate?