[Help] Custom switch: From .blogspot to .com

if you required any trouble to follow those steps

I meant help...It seems I was in trouble mind ..lmao

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@Aditya I checked your thread. It's amazing, like a live tutorial. Thank you very much for sharing the link, very helpful indeed.

@Vijay Can you please post the link to that discounted coupon here? I searched but could not seem to find it.

@ Arti This is the link given by Vijay.

So, should I buy the domain name from that link?

Yes, Arti you can. For first year, it is something around 1$. After that, it will be around 10$ per year. NameCheap is a good site and I bought my domain from there itself ( Subash bought it for me ) . But then, I moved to bigrock after the first year as I didn't have a credit card to renew my domain. NameCheap accepts only credit card, paypal and some other things. BigRock.in  accepts net banking also.

Thanks, CyberKid. That thread seems to have gotten quite long and it looks to be very informative, will need some time to grasp all the information there.

Arti Ranjith has given a detailed answer. I hope things work out for you. I shifted 3 months ago from wordpress and I was scared too but it is one of the best thing you'll do as a blogger!

Ranjith, thank you very much for these steps. I am following them and to start up, going for Godaddy.. good? Also, suppose I buy the domain right now, how much time will it take to get the new custom blog up and running?

Ranjith, ref. to your above reply on namecheap:

If I buy it from namecheap, which guideline should be used to create CName record from this page: https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/58317?hl=en&ref_topic=12451

@Ranjith I just searched for myyatradiary on namecheap and it says available for $10.69. Which is actually higher than godaddy which is 10$/year. Am I missing out something? 

@Ritu I hope so too that things work out. Thank you for your encouraging words, hope things will be well.

I moved my blog from blogspot to .com i want to change my url here as well on IB

i dont know how to do it

 plz help

@ Arti On that page, click the Generate Code button ( big orange box on right ) I think you should use that code while paying.

Specific instructions are not present for NameCheap on that google page. You should follow the general instructions. I will post specific instructions for namecheap here tomorrow evening if you want. ( I'm sure that you'll need them  )

It takes 5 minutes to set up the domain name. And around 1-2 days for it to become active.

@ SS You can add your new domain to your IB profile. AFter it is approved, delete the old one on IB. ( OR ) Ask IndiTeam to do the changes by opening a support ticket here.

@ Hemal As far as I know, Arti gets decent traffic from google. If she moves to a wordpress blog, all the links that she has will become useless as she can't redirect a blogger blog to some other domain ( as far as I know )

Even if it can be done, she will have a tough time redirecting individual url's to match wordpress's format. Or is there a plugin for that too? 

.

I accept with you that we can do a lot of customizations on Wordpress ( but only for developers and those who do not fear code  )

While I was moving my blog, I had to set a lot of things straight. 

The URL format (Permalinks), among them, was prominent. Mine was set for "YY, MM, title". So I ensured that my new Wordpress is set to follow the same.

Arti's My Yatra Dairy has the same format. So, the URL should not be a problem. Except for the .html bit... 

http://myyatradiary.blogspot.com/2013/08/iskcon-temple-in-kannur-kerala.html - domain, YY, MM, title

Arti has 230 posts (latest count) on her blog. Yes I agree, listing all of them will be a task that needs to be done. There are some online Link generators, however they do not help get the best results. 

If Arti is setting a 301 redirect on her myyatradiary.blogspot.com domain, it will look like below. 

Redirect 301 http://myyatradiary.blogspot.com http://www.newdomain.comRedirect 301 http://myyatradiary.blogspot.com/ http://www.newdomain.com/

Then, comes the individual pages. 

Redirect 301 http://myyatradiary.blogspot.com/2013/08/iskcon-temple-in-kannur-kerala.html http://newdomain.com/2013/08/iskcon-temple-in-kannur-kerala

This is what she has to do for all the 230 posts. 

I also see that additionally, she has a fan following and subscription. She will need to set up subscription on Wordpress using JetPack, and add these users there as well. Tedious, it sounds yes. 

Self hosted wordpress needs hosting, which will cost her money. Another advantage of using Google Blogger.

Wordpress Customizations are easier to those who fear codes, unless you know the right tools to use them. Given Arti is using Blogger for ages (since 2009) she is accustomed to its interface and knows things better, it will take her a while. 

I know above arguements are more in favor of Blogger, But Wordpress offers better SEO, better functionalities as compared to Blogger, and seamless and free upgrades to so many plugins that help make the life of a blogger better. And yes, better themeing too.

Additional: Once the listing of existing post links is completed it is easier from there. 

Take one Excel workbook, any sheet, in column A, paste the list of links. Do the same on Column B. 

Select Column A, CTRL + H, type in the domain name (http://myyatradiary.blogspot.com) and replace it with "Redirect 301" and run Replace All.

Select Column B, CTRL + H, type in the domain name (http://myyatradiary.blogspot.com) and replace it with "http://newdomain.com" and run Replace All.

Thrid step, Copy both columns and paste it into notepad. 

Easy way to list all the old links and new links for redirection.

@ Hemal You can redirect http://myyatradiary.blogspot.com/xyz only to http://myyatradiary.blogspot.com/abc ( where abc and xyz are any sequence of characters ) ( as far as I know )

@Ranjith, only exception for Blogspot is that .html at the end of URL

If it is there, you cannot get a perfect match in URL

@Ranjith this is what that redirect will look like

If Arti is setting a 301 redirect on her myyatradiary.blogspot.com domain, it will look like below. 

Redirect 301 http://myyatradiary.blogspot.com http://www.newdomain.com

Redirect 301 http://myyatradiary.blogspot.com/ http://www.newdomain.com/

@ Hemal Can't we have .html at the end of wordpress urls?

/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html

good idea, I can test this and tell you

Worked like a charm! :) 

http://indianomics.co.in/2005/08/testing-the-permalinks.html

@ Hemal You can't set 301 redirects like that on Blogger, I think :

Blogger allows you to redirect oly from /abc to /xyz. The base for the redirects will be the original blog address. 

Error message from blogger when I type a domain name in the Redirect To field :

The source and destination values cannot be empty or more than 256 characters and must start with /

That is really bad... I dont know how it works on Blogger since I moved my blogger about 7 years ago, and did really care about Blogger redirects.

Just one question before I start reading and scratching my head on all the above possibilities:

Can 'Google Friend Connect followers / widget' be retained if I migrate from blogger to wordpress?

@ Hemal Blogger don't wants to allow people move to other platforms, so it offers all that it can except allowing people to migrate easily. 

@ Arti No Till a few months ( or something more than a year ) back, it used to be possible. But, not now. 

whoao...wats all these...think i'll never understand all these in this lifetime so i guess its blogspot forever

@ Nandini ... and your history template 

@Arti and Nandini- blogger is as good as WP...As per SEO is concern blogger has developed a lot in past 7 years...in fact Google too has started to give more importance to contents than SEO...and the basic SEO which is needed can be done easily in blogger interface..so dont bother much...

@EVERYONE in this reply l I read all your replies and I really appreciate all your help. Thank you so much for taking the time and helping me gain some insight in these concepts.

Hemal, I understand what you are trying to convey and I have a fair bit of idea that wordpress has a whole range of extra features that blogger does not. But I would not want to lose my google friend connect base right now. Hence, I was opting for blogger in the first place and not wordpress. May be, I might migrate to wordpress self hosted in future but right now... guess, will just stick to blogger for some more time.

Hey Arti,

I accept your arguement 

However, if you thinking to move to Wordpress at a later point in future, then you should think about it now. Your current base may be smaller comapred to the future, and with increased numbers, it will be even difficult to decide. 

Valid point, Hemal. I agree. Wordpress is better suited in SEO, flexibility, plug ins etc. and beats blogger in many highlighted departments any day.  And I also know I will be provided support here in case I decide to migrate to wordpress. The thing is, my blogger followers have meant a lot to me and (right now) also mean something more to me than just mere numbers.

Let’s try to look at it this way:

IB means to us more than just a blogger directory, right? Suppose if some abc directory (which has all the features of IB + some more) comes to you tomorrow and says “Leave IB and join us, we will give you the permanent top slot honor of a forum hero  and much much more!” Will you leave this place and go?

You smart girl! 

If someone needs to learn how to shut others mouth, go to Arti... 

Google Friend Connect will work only with Blogger 

Ah, yes, this was long time coming. Finally got down to doing it. Thanks a ton for your views, Puru. Highly appreciated. 

 I wonder why B-r-a-n-d-i-n-g was censored by indiblogger 

@Purnendu B-Ran-Ding

You need to send an email to admin of Indiblogger and they will do it manually....that is what I did

Thnx Prasad

Rebirth is as painful as birth :)

Thanks for sharing your valuable experience, Prasad.  In a way, it feels assuring to have people who have gone through all the same hassles present around you. There is really so much one can learn by sharing, and the fact that now your blog is very much running with flying colors reflects your dedication and hard work after the migration. I will surely keep all these factors in mind once I am done with the process. thanks for sharing the you tube video as well. I took my domain name from namecheap (costing me very cheap) as directed by Ranjith above.

Still working on it, Dhiraj. Have bought the domain name only till now, rest everything remains.

Thanks a lot, Ranjith. I will do this sometime soon. Thanks to Vijay also for the coupon code link. It surely did save me a lot of money.

This is the link : http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/1243/78/ 

Yes, got that Ranjith. But please check below replies, I am not sure if I have set it up correctly.

No redirection involved in case if blog is hosted on google?

See this page. 

When I had moved to custom domain two years back, that extra CNAME record was not there. 

Thanks a lot, Ranjith. You made me complete everything. All your guidance and support was simply amazing, thank you sooooooooo much!

Thanks so much, Prasad.  Your presence was a lot assuring, thanks a lot for coming in and for your best wishes.