Migration from WordPress.com to WordPress.org

My blog is hosted by > WordPress.com. I like it, but you have some restrictions, e. g. you can not use JavaScript or most of the plugins which are available for > WordPress.org.

Both WordPress versions are free of charge. Since my blog is without advertising I pay nearly 30 $ each year. If I use WordPress.org I have to buy webspace, which will cost nearly 50 €/year at my webhoster.

At the weekend I installed WordPress.org on my local computer and tried to migrate the blog posts from my WordPress.com blog to the new WordPress.org blog.

First, I was very impressived that the installation of WordPress.org was very easy and without any problems. For the installation on Microsoft Windows you can use the > Microsoft Web Platform Installer, where you can select WordPress.org from the > Microsoft Web App Gallery.  After the installation and configuration you can start with exporting the posts, pages and media items from the WordPress.com blog. You will get an xml file, which you can import to the new WordPress.org blog.

Some observations, I have made:

• Export and Import of embedded YouTube videos or Slideshare presentation did not work. You have to embed these things manually.
• To put a profile image in the sidebar you have to install a new plugin.
• On some images the border settings were lost.

And, of course, you will lost all links to your posts on WordPress.com, if you remove the blog. For this, you should not remove the blog and add links directed the new blog.

In the next step I will transfer the WordPress.org blog from my local computer to the webspace.