Moving site to WordPress

Nova · Jul 25, 2015

Does anyone know how I can move my site currently on Yahoo web hosting to WordPress? I want to keep the old site up while I work on the new version on WordPress.

My old provider is yahoo and the new one is Host gator. I want to keep all the page names and URLs the same as the old one in order to be able to keep the link juice.

I may however combine a few pages as Google seems to like pages with more content and 301 the old page to the new page?

The main reason for wanting to do this is Yahoo webmaster tools is not mobile obtimised. Although I'm at the bottom of page 1 I think this might help me rank a bit higher and generally improve the look of the site.

Any suggestions?

diablo · Jul 25, 2015

You don't say what format your current pages are, but you can import html pages for example into Wordpress via plugins like:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/import-html-pages/

These plugins are never perfect so always worth checking each page after import.

Nova · Jul 26, 2015

diablo said:
You don't say what format your current pages are, but you can import html pages for example into Wordpress via plugins like:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/import-html-pages/

These plugins are never perfect so always worth checking each page after import.

Thanks Diablo. I have also looked at building the site off line using wamp but it all looks quite complicated. I am kind of scared to flip to a new host with wordpress on it and start copying the content as it will take me ages and might effect my rankings until I have all the pages and images loaded to the new wordpress site?

dazc · Jul 26, 2015

Nova said:
I am kind of scared to flip to a new host with wordpress on it and start copying the content as it will take me ages and might effect my rankings until I have all the pages and images loaded to the new wordpress site?

Set up the wordpress site on your new hosting and work on it at your leisure - google aren't going to know anything about it until the nameservers are switched.

Your new host ought to be able to explain to you how this is done.

mtalk · Jul 27, 2015

If its just wordpress migration I feel your new host should help , and are you sure on moving to hostgator as they have some horrible support stories since they were sold out to EIG, In case you need a host with wordpress hosting that can get your website migrated I would suggest to check https://www.rshosting.com/wordpress-hosting/ I sure they will help you migrate data for free , I have got that support many times.

nick-harper · Jul 27, 2015

How many pages does the site have? You could just get new hosting and setup wordpress, force your host file and then get all of the data moved over. Once you are happy you change the nameservers / DNS so it doesn't go live until you are ready.

Nova · Jul 27, 2015

nick-harper said:
How many pages does the site have? You could just get new hosting and setup wordpress, force your host file and then get all of the data moved over. Once you are happy you change the nameservers / DNS so it doesn't go live until you are ready.

Thanks for the tip Nick. I contacted hostgator and I was told to read this article: https://support.hostgator.com/articles/specialized-help/technical/how-do-i-change-my-hosts-file

Im not sure if that is what I'm looking for. He also said:

Robert R
There are other options, like creating the site on a subdomain.
7:03:53 PM
Robert R
But they require much more work to fix later.

Nova · Jul 27, 2015

Me:
It would be great if you could just build the site offline and then add it to hostgator flick the switch on the nameservers and go live!

7:06:14 PM
Robert R
Correct.
7:06:19 PM
Robert R
It would!
7:06:21 PM
Robert R
Agreed!

nick-harper · Jul 28, 2015

Yes, just change your host file while you work on it. You are then tricking your computer into thinking the dns has been changed.

Once you are happy change the dns

Nova · Jul 29, 2015

nick-harper said:
Yes, just change your host file while you work on it. You are then tricking your computer into thinking the dns has been changed.

Once you are happy change the dns

Thanks Nick, this may all be above my head and I've never done it before but I'll look into it and read the guide. Hopefully I can suss it out