Merge Two WordPress Sites Into One Without Losing SEO And Content

May 19th, 2017 | by Ravi Chahar || 4 Comments |

Are you looking to merge two WordPress sites into one? Just a few days ago, someone asked about it because she ended up migrating one website to another host.

Most of the WordPress users are confused between migrating the full website and only the content. Let me clear it.

Migration of a WordPress website is when you transfer everything including the domain from one place to another whereas, in merging, you copy and paste the content of one site to another.

You may want to use the content of your old website on the new one. Every individual has his/her own reasons. You can’t generalize it.

Do you feel overwhelming with the marketing, problem handling, content writing for two websites? The best option is to merge two WordPress sites into one without losing SEO.

What are the Steps Required for the Completion of this Merging Process

There are a few steps which should be followed to accomplish this task. From importing the content from your old website and to import that content, everything will be taken care of.

If you know how to import and export WordPress content, you’re half way there.

NOTE: Before you do something, you should backup your WordPress websites for safety.

You wouldn’t want to mess up with the live websites without having a backup. Backup your website consisting the database.

Let me mentioned the necessary steps.

• Exporting the content of your old website
• Merging the content of your old website with the new one
• Redirecting Your Old Site to the New Site
• Update Internal Post Links
• Merge Categories and Tags
• Check the WordPress settings and content success rate

To do so, you should know how to import and export a WordPress website. You will be using the official WordPress tools.

You may be thinking about the database. Well, with this method, you don’t need to worry about it. No technical knowledge is required.

Even a newbie can accomplish this.

#1. Exporting the Content of Your Old Website

It’s like copying the content of your old website into a single file. With all the posts, pages, custom posts, media etc, you’re going to export the content.

To do so, you have to log into your old website and go to Tools>>Export and you will see a radio button to select for exporting the full content.

If you’re merging your complete website to another then use the “All Content” option and if you want to merge only a few posts then you can filter it using other options.

Select the posts radio button and you can filter those according to the category, months etc. Choose it accordingly and click on the “Download Export File” button.

It will download an XML file to your computer. Keep it safe.

#2. Merge the Content of Your Old Website With the New One

It can be also termed as the importing process because here, you have to import the XML file you have downloaded in the previous step.

Follow the steps.

Step 1: – Log into your new website and go to Tools>>Import and you will see many official importers which are used to import the content from different platforms.

These are used when you move your blog from Blogger to WordPress, WordPress.com to WordPress.org, Squarespace to WordPress, LiveJournal to WordPress etc.

But you have to import the content of a WordPress website so click on the “install now” button below “WordPress” importer and within a few seconds the install now link will convert into “Run importer”.

Step 2: – You will see a new page showing “Import WordPress” as the title. At this page, you will see a “choose file” button. Use it to select the XML file you have downloaded before.

You will also see the upload button which would become clickable once you choose the file. Click to that.

Step 3: – At this page, you will be asked to assign the posts and pages to an existing author or you want to create any new user.

Depending on your choice, you can do the proper settings. There is a checkbox below, it’s very important to check it to import the attachments with the content.

After that, click on the submit button and you’re done. On the next page, you will see a message showing “All done. Have fun!”

It means you have successfully merged the content of your old website into the new one.

To keep the SEO unaffected, you have to set the redirects to your old website’s posts and pages so that your readers can get redirected to your new website.

#3. Redirecting Your Old Site to the New Site

You have merged the content but to merge two WordPress sites into one, you have to set the redirect so that your visitors get redirected to your new website.

To do so, either you can add a code in the .htaccess file of your old website or you can use a Simple 301 redirects plugin.

I would recommend adding the code which is simple. I hope you know how to edit the .htaccess file.

Log into the root directory of your old WordPress website and open the .htaccess file to edit. Add the code.

NOTE: Replace the URL with the URL of your new website.

If you’re using HTTPS on your new website then it should also be included. The point is, just replace the URL with the URL of your website whether it has HTTPS or not.

Save the file and you’re done. Your readers will get redirected to your new WordPress website.

You can check it by visiting any post on your old website and it will automatically redirect to the new website. It will keep the SEO of your posts safe.

#4. Update Internal Post Links

You have redirected the posts but the links added inside those post may not get redirected. To do so, you have to update URLs.

To do so, you can use a plugin. Just add the URL of your old website and the new one. It will automatically update all the links present in the posts and pages to your new website.

It’s necessary to maintain the SEO and to provide the best experience to your readers.

NOTE: If you see everything fine then no need to follow this step.

#5. Merge the Categories and Tags

This step is optional. Some of the readers want to use the same categories they were using on their websites and want to merge the older categories and tags into the already existing categories in their new website.

Suppose you have written a few post under “blogging” category but you want those to appear under “guides” category.

You can easily merge categories or tags.

#6. Check the WordPress Settings and Images

It’s possible that a few of the images wouldn’t get migrated from your old site to the new one. To fix this, you have to upload those images manually to the media library.

Those there is a tool to upload multiple images but you don’t need that. I am sure, you can do a little bit work without any plugin.

And also check the general settings of your WordPress website if something has changed. Try to open your older posts and if everything works fine, congrats, you have successfully merged your old website into the new website.

I Hope You Can Easily Merge Two WordPress Sites Into One

The process is simple as you see all the steps are easy to accomplish. You don’t need any coding skill or any other technical knowledge.

With the simple use of WordPress tools, you can merge two WordPress sites into one. Many people fret because of the SEO.

But you shouldn’t. To maintain it, you just have to set the redirects and update the URLs for the interlinks. No content will be missed.

The WordPress importer is actually a plugin which is specially developed for this purpose. If you face any problem, feel free to reach us.

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