Transferring to personal server– is a “double switch” possible?
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Hi,
Here’s the story. I want to move my blog (bacteriality.com) from the wordpress server to my personal server. I am not too good with installing so I am enlisting the services of the install4free crew.
The installer said I had to transfer the domain first and then he could install. It’s not like I’m getting tons of traffic, but I don’t want to risk 5 days of downtime. So, I guess I have a few questions:
1. How much stuff can I import from the wordpress server– CSS, images, post, comments, etc.?
2. Is there a way to do a double switch? Maybe by starting a second blog (i.e. bacteriality2) on my private hosting space and then switching it back to bacteriality once it’s up and running?
I could experiment. I just don’t want to screw this up. : )
thanks,
Amy -
It’s not like I’m getting tons of traffic, but I don’t want to risk 5 days of downtime.
Not sure if it’s you telling yourself that it’s 5 days or your host but that time period was phased out years ago. In fact there are some people on the net who say that that is the one and only thing that Network Solutions has ever done for the good of the net. (I’m one of those people.)
The ICANN nameservers get updated every 5 minutes now, one at a time in rotation. Since there’s 16 of them, your theoriticial down time is about an hour and a half. In addition, wp.com’s nameservers have listed that your IP address needs to be checked after a 3 hour time period. Granted, not every ISP is going to obey that time period (UUNet and Comcast are known for not doing so) but you would have that issue no matter what you do.
Exporting – Everything but the uploaded files and stats can be exported out. CSS is just a matter of loading the files within your browser and saving them to your desktop. Posts and comments export out at Dashboard -> Manage -> Export. For links, do a search here in the forums for OPML as it;s been discussed before. Stats, if you continue to use the wp.com stats plugin, they should carry over but I’ve not tried it myself so I’m not sure.
The issue would be the images. The URL and data records for them are contained within that post export that you do but the actual images are not. They do remain here on the wp.com server if you don’t cancel your account so they’re still usable though. wp.com does not limit hotlinking. One thing you may want to do is download them one at a time and reupload them into your new space. You’re going to have to relink them though.
As to #2, just make sure you don’t turn off your old blog here, especially if you leave the pictures behind. It is recommended though that you set your old blog to not be seen by the search engines. Also empty out your sidebar and replace it with a single text widget saying that you have moved and suggest to visitors that they clear out their local dns cache. Do a search for ‘ipconfig’ on instructions on how to do that.
Hope this helps,
-drmike -
This is helpful advice, drmike. Thanks.
I’ve made the domain name change and am waiting for it to transfer over. I’ve also changed the setting in the blog so that it is (temporarily) not indexed by search engines.
I looked into this whole business about clearing out one’s local dns cache. My viewers (all three of them) are not tech savvy. In the absence of getting people to clear their local dns cache, how long is this problem going to linger?
Thanks much,
Amy -
In the absence of getting people to clear their local dns cache, how long is this problem going to linger?
That’s the problem. Offically, as per wp.com’s settings, it’s three hours. Some ISPs (the comcast and uunet examples as above) override that with longer times. We’ve had folks here in the forums report a couple of days in the past.
It’s actually fairly each to clear the dns cache. For windows, click on Run, type in ‘command’ with out the quotes and then ‘ipconfig /flushdns’, again without the quotes.
Hope this helps,
-drmike
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