Blogger to Wordpress 301 and Meta Refresher Redirect

[mattdinbrooklyn]

Hi Everyone!

So my client has a blogger that she has developed a good amount of link equity for. It is a hersite.blogspot.com (she doesn't own her own domain yet). She is moving to the Wordpress platform though and the only way we can do a redirect is through a meta refresh redirect (since she doesn't have access to the servers on blogger). I went to Google Webmasters to do a change of address and found that the 301 checker said it couldn't find any 301 redirect, which is disappointing. What we're planning is telling all the places that link to the blog to change their links to the new blog but other than that what does anyone recommend to keep this link strength?

Thanks!

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Do the following:

• Update your sitemap

• Update sitemap in Google and Bing WMT

• Update internal links

• I recommend relative URLs so if your address changes, you are saving time

• Run a crawl with ScreamingFrog to see there are no errors or issues

I would also check out this migration guide from Moz just to make sure all your bases are covered.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[mattdinbrooklyn]

Thanks! But how can I do a change of address in Google Webmaster Tools. GWT doesn't allow me to make the change cause it doesn't see 301 redirects.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Read this resource quick and make sure that your site is redirecting properly. It could be an issue with your implementation.

Do you have a URL you can share here?

Let me know - thanks so much!

[mattdinbrooklyn]

Sure. It's joannagoddard.blogspot.com. The issue is that I don't have access to the servers since it's on Blogger so I can't do a 301 redirect. I'm currently doing a meta refresher but GWT won't let me do a change of address without a 301.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

joannagoddard.blogspot.com is returning a 200, so yes, it's not going to work in GWMT.

What I would do is see if you can get access to the server. If not, take a look at Wordpress redirect plugins. Depending on the account your client has, you may (I am not entirely sure here) have to upgrade the account and implement it that way.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments!

[mattdinbrooklyn]

It's impossible to get access to that server and all the Blogger to Wordpress plugins I see use meta refreshers as well. I'm kinda stuck with this issue.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Do you have a web development company that you can pass this request off to? If not, I would contact Wordpress and see what they recommend doing.

According to this plugin, there are no meta refreshes here. Have you looked into this plugin?

[evolvingSEO]

Hi There

This seems like a way to do custom 301 redirects - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24795465/use-301-redirect-in-google-blogger-blogspot - is that method possible for you?