Move blogspot blog Domain/Blog

[klbklb90015]

We have had a blog up for over 2 years on brandname.blogspot.com. I want to get the SEO value out of the blog - we have 400 blog post. We don't get alot of visitors and the blogposts weren't even linked to the main site.

Should I just 301 redirect and move everything to domain/blog?

Is that the best way?

Thanks.

[Branagan]

Basically, yes.

I'm not sure if you can use 301 redirects (best method) in Blogspot, if not you could set the new domain's URLs as canonical.

You could also use the "change of address" feature in Google's Webmaster Tools. although. again. I'm not sure if you can use it with Blogspot (not a big fan of the service as you can see

When you finish, check, re check, and keep an eye for those 404s!

[ThompsonPaul]

Migrating a Blogspot site to a WordPress self-hosted one while retaining SEO value is a serious heap of work, Karen, and it's quite finicky. You'll really want to seriously consider (after doing some analysis of the existing blog's value) whether the time and effort is worth it if, as you say, you don't get many visitors (indicating the site doesn't have much ranking value in Google.)

Because, as Branagan points out, you can't simply add redirects to an .htaccess file (Blogspot doesn't give you access to one), you have to build a custom template for Blogspot site which matches up to your specially-configured new blog.

Here's by far the best tutorial on this process I've found. The author has also created a plugin to help with the process. It even includes a method for managing the download & re upload of the blog's images. It's been a couple years since I've done one, but it is doable if you have a lot of time and patience.

Really make sure the value of the old blog is worth it before you invest the time, but if you decide to go for it, good luck!

Paul

[EGOL]

If the blog posts have true value and if there has not been a big investment in offpage SEO, I would simply move them to the primary domain.

That will be a big increase in benefit over what you currently are getting.

If you can figure out a way to canonical or redirect that will be a huge bonus as long as you have not built spammy links.