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Some Differences Between WordPress and Blogger

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Moving from Blogger to WordPress is a fairly easy transition, but there are a few minor details that you should bear in mind in making a decision.

~~ If you have been using Blogger for some time, you will have to import your old posts into WordPress.  This is done by simply going into the Import page in WP and following instructions.  Something to keep in mind is there are No Categories in Blogger, so when you import the posts, everything goes into the Default Category, even if you had it set up manually and broken into categories on your old Blog.

I had well over 300 posts on Blogger when I made the move, so I spent quite a bit of time re-categorizing all past posts.  I am also using General instead of Uncategorized, I think it doesn’t look like you just didn’t know where to put something (personal choice).

~~  Everything is broken down into separate Templates in WP.  Pages, Sidebars, Header, Footer and other sections need to be dealt with individually.  If you were used to being able to go into the one template and making changes for everything at once, it won’t happen in WordPress.  One advantage of this setup is you can use different links, ads etc on various pages.  ie. You can have something for AdSense on the Home Page and Yahoo on Individual pages, because they are separate and won’t show one set of ads on the other page.

But, if you want something to show up on every page, you must remember to add it to the various template sections.  This is a little more time consuming, but with the advantage of flexibility, it is worth a little extra time.

~~  Plug-ins are one of the best advantages of WordPress over Blogger.  If you want to add something to your Blog, there is more than likely a Plug-in for it.  I added the Akismet, Social Bookmarking and Follow Comments Plug-ins to name a few.  Most come with detailed instructions for installation and use.  These type of additions are not available for Blogger.

~~  Link management is fairly simple on WordPress, whereas there is no real management at all on Blogger.  With WP you can categorize and separate links (depending on the Theme).  On Blogger, everything has to be done manually for any links you want to add.

 

Not all of the options mentioned above are available on Wordpress.com, but are if using WordPress in conjunction with your own Domain.

Whether you are using WordPress or Blogger, be sure to determine which Theme you want to use Before you start adding or changing anything.  In most cases, the changes will be lost if you move to a different Theme.

 

Is there anything you have found that should be added to the list?  Is there something you think could be made easier in the transition?

August 2nd, 2006 at 01:59pm | Posted by Joe | Basics, Blogger, Blogging, Plug-ins, Reviews, WordPress | 6 reader remarks | Print This Post