I finally made the jump and moved on from DasBlog. This is something that I’ve been wanting to do for sometime now. I’ve been on DasBlog for around 3 years and it was great. But now it was time to move on, try something else.
I choose WordPress. For any of those who may be interested, here is my summary version of a how to on migrating from DasBlog to WordPress:
Migrating from DasBlog 1.9 to WordPress 2.6.2
- Setup a new WordPress blog
- Exported data from DasBlog; posts,comments
- Imported data to WordPress
- Other stuff: Redirect old posts, Feedburner, Statcounter Statistics, Google Analytics, Google Webmasters tools, Google Adsense
Installing WordPress:
It included only a few steps suchs downloading WordPress installation, editing a configuration file, uploading all the files to a web server, opening up the install web page on the browser, and the next thing you know, WordPress is installed! You could say that I had the perfect experience of the famous 5 minute install. But if you get into trouble there is always help http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress.
From my experience I’d advice to configure you’re desired permalink structure if you so wish to customize it. This should be done before importing the posts.
Exporting old blog data:
This was the tricky part, unfortunately the default WordPress installation does not come with an option to “Import posts, comments, users, and categories from DasBlog”. Yet.
Enter BlogML. The XML format for blog content. You could say that this is what made the migration possible.
I knew that it was possible to export all my blog data into a BlogML file. Merill did this sometime back when he migrated from DasBlog to BlogEngine.Net. Also, he’s now gone ahead and created a little windows app based on Paul Van Brenk’s code to make things easier.
Imported data to WordPress:
Aaron lerch had done all the hard work by creating the import module for WordPress for BlogML. I downloaded its updated version that had been modified to work with WordPress 2.3 when Rob Walling migrated from Community Server to WordPress.
This did not however work exactly how I would have liked, but with a minor tweek here and there the import module to worked like a charm with the WordPress 2.6 installation I had. Here is the updated file (and the required XPath Class - XPath.class.php v 3.5) for the BlogML to WordPress import module. All you need to do is to drop these files into the WordPress Imports directory (/wp-admin/import/).
During the WordPress installation phase I suggested that you configure your required permalink structure.Here is why, Aaron’s import script also gives you a CSV file with all the old permalinks and the corresponding new permalink. This file can be used to create all the 301 permanent redirects for all your previous posts.
Other Stuff:
Redirecting posts was easy because we’d already have a mapping of old permalink to new permalink from the previous step, I only needed to add these into my .htaccess file.
The other places that I needed to update to reflect this change of blog engine was in Feedburner; where I needed to update the feed URL and Google Webmasters Tools where I needed to submit a new site map and delete the old. WordPress has a nice plugin that would create a decent site map.
Then as the last step, I added all the Statistics, Analytics, Advert javascript codes.
..and with all that, here I am writing my very first post on WordPress.
Thanks for updating the module for WordPress 2.6! If you don’t mind, I’ll update the version on my site and link back here – cool?
Thanks!
Sure, please do.
[...] Just grab the zip file from Kavinda, unzip and upload them to the wp-admin/imports folder check his post and the related posts if you have trouble setting it [...]
[...] importing the posts I used a plugin originally created by Aaron lerch and updated by Kavinda. This was a bit tricky. My WordPress install allowed uploads of only 2MB files. My BlogML file was [...]
[...] WordPress is pretty popular with the group I work with, so that is what I decided to go with. The problem… there isn’t an importer for WordPress from DasBlog. I did a search and came up with a few good posts, but I am not as knowledgeable as I should be so it took a little work to figure it all out. This is the post that gave me the most help: http://www.kavinda.net/2008/10/23/migrating-from-dasblog-to-wordpress.html [...]
[...] 3. Now you have to import this BlogML to newly setup wordpress. I used this plugin (BlogML-WordPress-Import) of wordpress. You should know how to install wordpress plugin to use [...]
[...] in October 2008, Kavinda Munasinghe wrote a post about switching from DasBlog to WordPress, and once again, updated Aaron’s [...]
[...] the wonderful BlogML import script for WordPress by Aaron Lerch (get it here) and FTP it up to your /wp-admin/import/ [...]
[...] in October 2008, Kavinda Munasinghe wrote a post about switching from DasBlog to WordPress, and once again, updated Aaron’s [...]
[...] two files directly into the wp-admin/imports folder. If you have an issues setting it up check his post and the related post he [...]
[...] Migrating from dasBlog to WordPress [...]
Меня всегда раздражали люди – которые считают, что блог и WordPress это одно и то же. Плюсы WP – это огромное количество модулей и скинов, а также большое количество пользователей, что подразумевает под собой быстрый поиск ответов на уже задававшиеся кем-то вопросы. На этом его преимущества и заканчиваются.
[...] For the BlogML to WordPress import module. you would need to drop these files into the WordPress Imports directory (/wp-admin/import/). Details of the process are on Kavinda’s blog. [...]
I have tried using your script but the file keeps importing into the media as a .txt file.
Suggestions?
I’ll need to look into this more. I provide a top of the range plugin for importing csv files too wordpress but never worked with xml. Not sure its that great, I think its limited compared to what my plugin can do with csv file data.
Best plugin on the market for this task is Easy CSV Importer but its meant for professional use, lots of data and lots of blogs.
http://www.webtechglobal.co.uk/services/wordpress-support/premium-plugins/easy-csv-importer
Get WordPress Easy CSV Import for only £29.99 now before it increases to £99.99 later, it’s worth £99.99 maybe more check it out and see.
thanks for your help.
Thanks so much for this info. This migration info is super useful and got me up and running quickly.
[...] it this weekend. A quick web search turned up more than a few helpful pages on migrating content (Kavinda’s post is a good one stop shop). The key components to my migration from dasBlog v1.9 to WordPress v2.9.2 [...]
good post! i will said many thanks for you. its very helpfull for me, i will adiing feed your blog now
Do you have this plugin working by any change against WP 2.9.2
Sorry, haven’t had time to look into it.
this post its very helpful for me, i said many thabks, i will adding feed this blog now. keep update my friends
[...] Migrating from DasBlog to WordPress – Kavinda Munasinghe’s Blog (DasBlog 1.9 to WordPress 2.6.2) [...]