Transferring website name
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I am looking into transferring my website to WordPress. I have hundreds of pages at my current website. Will the addresses to these pages remain the same?
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Hi juniorlamby,
I am looking into transferring my website to WordPress.
There are two types of WordPress:
- WordPress.com: where a site is created and hosted on our servers.
- WordPress.org: where WordPress.org software is installed on a third party host of your choice.
We have more information about the main differences between the two here:
If you are able to export content from the current site to .xml, that can be imported to WordPress.com.
Will the addresses to these pages remain the same?
The existing domain could be mapped or transferred to WordPress.com when you are ready to make the switch. Which site are you using at the moment? Once I know for sure, I can check the permalink structure of those pages.
In short, the first decision will be which version of WordPress you would like to use :)
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I currently use Godaddy. I know I’m going to have to fully create a new site (using the content on my current site), but what I really want is for all my web page addresses to be the same (I have hundreds of pages). Am I able to post my website address here as an example?
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Hi there,
Yes, you can post your site’s address here and we’ll be able to tell you if it’ll be compatible with our address structure.
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@ juniorlamby it’ll be some work, but I think it’s doable. :) The trick is that you’ll want the URL to be as close to the old one as possible.
I tested by making a new page, and set its “slug” address to sitka—1830 without the .html. The system changed it to just sitka-1830. When I tried to visit /sitka—1830.html on the site, the system automatically redirected to the correct page.
The same thing happened with posts: I tested by making a post called Rockfish. And then I visited /rockfish.html and was redirected as needed.
Please note that may not work well though if you have page names on the site that are very similar.
Have you thought about whether you want to use pages (static content), or posts (articles sorted by date, newest first), or a built in portfolio for your content? You might try looking at the themes we have here:
wordpress.com/theme to see which could be a good fit for your site. -
Is there any way to do a “test” run? Without linking to my website? I would like to play around with certain features, ones that I cannot do on my current website. But I’m not wanting to change anything to my site just yet.
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There’s not really any way to test without linking your domain here, no. Here’s what I’d suggest:
Create a new free site in your WordPress.com account, and recreate a few pages here, making sure they have the same URL slugs as on your current site, as @supernovia explained above.
Then let us know and we can try to add a temporary domain mapping upgrade, and point your domain to us (note this might not be possible, in which case you’d have to upgrade to a paid plan to add the domain mapping). Give the DNS changes on the domain some time to update, and then check.
If it works, you can switch your domain back to GoDaddy and continue moving things over until you’re ready to switch/transfer the domain for good.
If it doesn’t work and you decide not to continue the migration to us, we can give you a full refund for the plan should you already have bought one at that point.
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I’m trying to still figure out a new website / server for me. What would the admins suggest, as far as a plan? As a reminder, my current website (through godaddy.com) is http://www.daledearmond.com. I need something that, when ported over, preserves the same “link” address (ex. http://www.daledearmond.com/humming-birds.html).
Which plan would be sufficient? I do not make money on this site. But above all, I need a better search option within the site (ability to search [for example] ravens, 80s, engraving print).
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Hi juniorlamby,
As a reminder, my current website (through godaddy.com) is http://www.daledearmond.com. I need something that, when ported over, preserves the same “link” address (ex. http://www.daledearmond.com/humming-birds.html).
As @supernovia mentioned, you just need to use the same slug as your existing site (minus the .html part) here on WordPress.com. This support page explains how slugs can be edited on WordPress.com sites (on all plans):
https://en.support.wordpress.com/slugs/
Which plan would be sufficient?
In terms of a plan, I recommend comparing the overall features of each one here:
https://wordpress.com/pricing/
That will give you an overview of what each one includes and should help you choose the right one based on your needs.
But above all, I need a better search option within the site
The search widget and search feature built in to themes support searching by keywords. It will return results from the titles and the content of posts and pages, media titles, alt text, file names, and single image captions.
It would be possible to use search plugins on the Business plan but I think based on what you’ve said, the search features we offer should do what you need :)
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I don’t know why I keep having problems creating a website.
I do not want a blog website. Every site I try and create (under different plans), the “home” page always has a blog attribution, and I do not want that. Right now, I’m trying to do a “personal” plan. Any thoughts?
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Every site I try and create (under different plans), the “home” page always has a blog attribution
You can change that by setting a static front page on your site instead of the posts page:
This has nothing to do with your plan, or what theme you choose, but is simply how WordPress is designed to work. It was originally developed as blogging software, and the default setup still has blog posts front and center, but you can change that any time you want, and don’t need to make use of the posts feature at all if you don’t want to.
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I cannot find anywhere the link to “homepage settings.” When I click on customize (left hand on screen), there is no such link. If I click on https://wordpress.com/customize/, there is still no such link.
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Hi there,
Here are the step-by-step instructions on how to create a static homepage:
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