As some of you know, I had a blog called Sweaty Shop. It was, for all intents and purposes, my main blog. Recently I decided to move that blog to here at Starting A Blog. [UPDATE: it was moved again a couple of years later]
Why move an aged blog?
Sweaty Shop has been around since 2003, at least that’s when I registered the domain name. The site itself wasn’t a blog until… I think around 2005 or 2006. So why would I take an aged domain name and blog and move it to a new one?
Great question! I’m so glad you asked. 🙂
This site was created as part of a tutorial, an update to one I did back in 2008. The two blogs are similar enough in nature that I really didn’t want to maintain both of them, dividing up my resources. Starting A Blog is far more descriptive and SEO friendly, stating exactly what it is, but Sweaty Shop could refer to anything.
Things to think about before moving blogs.
Doing such a thing is not to be taken lightly. You can lose your search engine ranking, and if you don’t do a 301 redirect, you can lose people as well. The people on the mailing list need to sign up again at the new blog site.
If the blogs are different enough, then don’t do it. In my case it was pretty much duplicating my efforts to maintain both blogs, since they were so similar. It made sense, and it made more sense to go with the new domain name than to stay with the old one.
How do you move a blog?
I logged in to Sweaty Shop and used the “export” function under the “Tools” menu. I then downloaded the file, logged into Starting A Blog and used the “import” function, also under the “Tools” menu and imported the file.
That’s all there was to it. Then I went to my host and did a 301 redirect so people going to the Sweaty Shop site would be rerouted to Starting A Blog.
What did I learn about moving a blog?
That when you import the posts, they are published immediately. I thought they would be imported as drafts, allowing me the luxury of editing and re-publishing them one at a time. Although this wasn’t that big of a deal, I was slightly annoyed. I also learned that it not only exported my published posts, but the drafts as well. This was good.
What’s the next step?
The next step is to go through the imported posts and change the links, categories, and tags where needed. I can do this at my leisure however.