My personal websites (this one and blog.uysalmustafa.com) have been on the multisite for years and finally, I’ve migrated them to separate installation.
When I shut down my multisite network LettoBlog, decided to migrate WordPress.com to see upcoming features on WP.com and following the latest developments and changes.
When calypso landed on wp.com I hated it, I’m still one of those users that prefer to use wp-admin instead of calypso interface. I’ve strictly kept my websites on dot com until today. (plus+ I’m lazy to migrate my own sites.) But, I’ve got notification about payment. (for domain mapping) It’s failed and it’s a simple excuse for me to getting rid of dot com platform 🙂
Editor mess
I didn’t like the idea of combining calypso with classic/block editor. When I edit a post I always scared things will mess up. Especially the code blocks inside the blog post are the problem. (this is why I’ve started to use Gists instead of shortcode for embedding snippets, highly recommended)
Migration Process
WordPress.com’s migration guide is pretty neat. Easy peasy with 6 steps – https://move.wordpress.com/
But, (there will be always a “but” about migration) https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-importer/ didn’t work as expected. I’ve tried twice and then switched to wp-cli. WP-CLI worked smoothly.
bits of advice from a migration wizard
Probably, I’ve migrated websites in all possible ways. Custom CMS to WordPress, WordPress to WordPress, WP.com to WordPress, A domain to B domain …you name it… and websites migrations are sucks! There will be always a missing “edge cases” that you realize over time. As a developer, I like to solve complex problems but as a user, I hate it!
- Use WP-CLI, import command works better than the plugin
- Check media library and make sure original files exist.
- Preserve your URL structure
- Restore menu/widget settings manually. (Even my migration process failed with the plugin, it creates duplicated menu items 🤦🏼♂️)
- (If you are changing the domain name, check the redirections)
Finally, I feel like “democratizing publishing” again 🙃