UPDATE: There is now a plugin that imports from New Blogger to WordPress.

At the moment, the built-in Blogger-to-WordPress script that ships with WP2.x is broken for users who have switched to Blogger Beta (now known as “the new Blogger,” as it is no longer in beta.

The workaround is grossly esoteric, but still doable. If you want to move from new Blogger to WordPress but don’t want to tackle this procedure, you can order hosting with WebbleYou and we’ll do the import as part of our free setup process. We are also available to do upgrades for non-WebbleYou customers; contact us for a quote.

  • In the Formatting tab, set Timestamp Format to mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss AM/PM (the first choice in the dropdown menu). Save Settings.
  • In the Comments tab, set the Comments Timestamp Format just like you did in the previous step. Save Settings.
  • In the Archives tab, set the frequency to ‘monthly’. Save Settings.
  • Go to your Template. Backup your existing template (fortunately, this is easy with Blogger Beta - it’s a one-click .xml download)
  • Click Revert to Classic Template at the bottom of the screen.
  • Replace your existing template with this very long line (copy and paste, don’t break it into lines): Save Template Changes.
  • Visit your site’s archive pages, and save each of them. The format is like this:
    http://mysubdomain.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html
    You will need to do this for each month you have archives - twelve times for every year you’ve been blogging. Ick.
  • Rename each of the files so it ends in _wordpress.php, like this:
    http://mysubdomain.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_wordpress.php
  • Now for the import. Here we have problems, because a) The manual export only works with WP1.5.x, and the automatic import only works with WP2.x. Hence, the uber-kludge that follows.
  • Login to your site via FTP, and create a directory called “old” in your main folder.
  • Upload WP1.5.2 (get it here) into the “old” folder
  • Create a new database in your host’s control panel
  • Set up WP1.5.2 in the “old” folder, the normal way, using the new database (NOT your original WP database).
  • Upload the Blogger export files into this same folder
  • Upload this importer file into the /old/wp-admin/ folder via FTP, and change the extension to .php
  • Visit yoursite.com/old/wp-admin/import-blogger.php, and run the importer.
  • Upload the current version of WP2.x to your site, overwriting the WP1.5.2 files.
  • Visit yoursite.com/old/wp-admin, and click the links to upgrade this installation to the current version
  • Export the 2nd database (”old”) using PHPMyAdmin
  • Open the database export file in a text editor such as TextPad
  • Delete everything from the dump file, including the headers, except the following sections:
    • wp_comments
    • wp_post2cat
    • wp_posts
    • wp_categories
    • wp_postmeta

    Delete the “CREATE TABLE” sections even for these three tables; save only the lines that start with INSERT INTO, and only those that are in these three tables.

  • Go in PHPMyAdmin to your original WordPress database. If there’s already stuff in it, back it up just in case.
  • Copy everything left in your text editor (the 2nd DB’s dump) and paste it into the MySQL query box in PHPMyAdmin (or import the file using the import feature)
  • WGET the images from Blogger to your server. Hotlinking them from Blogger will not work - once they are viewed in an external page a few times, they will start to be blocked.
  • Move the images to a convenient location (such as /wp-content) on your server, preserving the numeric folder paths.
  • Dump the DB, and do a find-and-replace on all the image URLs, so the images are being served by your server.
  • That’s it!

I’m sure I’ve left something out, so leave a comment or contact us if you have any questions.

WebbleYou is the only hosting company that will perform this procedure for free for all new customers. You can order hosting here if you are interested.

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