Moving From Blogspot to Wordpress

When I started blogging last January, I had created two blogs, one in Blogger, one in Word Press. Both with the same name. Somehow the blogger blog was where the first few posts were published, and then it went on to become an online home :)

Life changed. The world became blog tinted. The Word Press Blog was abandoned. Blogger had me blogaddicted :)

I guess this was because Blogger is easier to use.

Recently when Solilo and Chirag convinced Indyeah, and Indyeah convinced Hitchwriter and Hitchwriter convinced Ordinary Guy and OG convinced Smitha - maybe not in that exact sequence ;) I did not need any convincing :) Roop, Nimmy, Nita, Charakan, Reflections and many other blogging friends had complained that they were finding it difficult to comment, specially from their cell phones. And then I read this helpful post by Destination Infinity where he mentions how he has two blogs one on Blogger and another one on Word Press and he updates both with the same content.

Everybody said Word Press is better than Blogger but I didn't like the idea of leaving behind older content, specially all the discussions and comments. When I read that the content from the first blog, with all the comments, could be imported with one click of a button, to a new blog, the decision was made.

It turned out to be the easiest thing to do. After consulting Hitchwiter, Ajit, Chirag, Destination Infinity and Solilo (THANK YOU!) a copy of all the Blogspot blog content- all posts and all comments were easily imported to the Word Press Blog.

One difficulty was the header from the first blog could not be used for the new blog (size difference). Creating a new one sounds like a lot of fun, so no problem there either.

Copying the blogroll is easy if we follow Chirag's tips in this post. (I am yet to do this.)

I am yet to sort all the categories, and try all the exciting options available in Word Press, this is my first post on WP, (Started writing it on Blogspot, imported to WP - yes 142 drafts were imported too!)

How does Word Press compare with Blogspot?

1. Word Press is great for comments threading , comments editing, moderating, replying to comments.

2. Writing posts is easier too, with an extra interesting option of strike through :) I always wanted this. There are many other features too. Still enjoying the surprises :) It's as good as using Microsoft Word.

3. Then there are BLOG STATS .

Blog stats look like this. (This means we do not need widgets like Feedjit, Live Traffic Feed in WP, but I read somewhere that these widgets can be added to Word Press too)
Blog Stats Summary Tables

Total views: 49

Busiest day: 24 — Monday, April 6, 2009

Views today: 24
Totals

Posts: 216 (imported from Blogger)

Comments: 9,750 (imported from Blogger)

Categories: 255

Tags: 0

4. You can also see Referrers and Search Engine Terms the same way.

5. Categories are another feature that make it easier for blog readers to look for what interest them. Like I found some readers were interested in reading only Family posts or only Gender related posts, Blog Spot does not have Categories - and I missed that.

6. Word press also lets you choose who can see your blog, in case you wish to have a blog for just your family, or a group of like minded people you have that option!

7. I think what might be easier in Blog Spot is it is easier to use and decorate :) You can add a wider range of fun widgets.

8. The ease of importing, the the excitement of redecorating a new home are tempting, but the biggest charm that Word Press has is the ease of replying to comments. Blogging is interactive, and being able to respond to comments was important for me.

Do you think this move will be good idea?