How to Move Custom Domain Blogger Blog to WordPress (Updated)

If you’re using Blogger with a custom domain, then moving to WordPress can feel risky. You might worry about losing traffic, breaking links, or messing up your domain settings.

But the move is worth it. With WordPress, you get complete ownership of your website, better SEO options to reach more readers, and the flexibility to grow your blog without any limits.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to move a custom domain Blogger blog to WordPress safely.

I’ll walk you through each step, from setting up WordPress to pointing your custom domain correctly, so your site keeps working as expected.

By the end, your blog will be on WordPress, and your visitors won’t notice the change.

📍Note: If you are looking to move a Blogger subdomain blog to WordPress, then see our guide on how to switch from Blogger to WordPress.

What Are the Limitations of Blogger?

Blogger is a free platform by Google that makes it easy to start a blog quickly. It’s simple and beginner-friendly, but as your blog grows, you might notice some limitations:

• Limited Customization – You can’t fully control your site’s design or layout.
• Less Flexibility With Plugins – Adding advanced features like contact forms, SEO tools, or eCommerce isn’t easy.
• Fewer SEO Options – You don’t get full control over SEO settings, which can make ranking higher in search engines harder.
• Ownership and Portability – While you own your content, moving it to another platform isn’t very smooth.
• Limited Monetization Options – Adding ads or other income streams is more restricted compared to WordPress.

Because of these limitations, many bloggers eventually switch to WordPress for more control, flexibility, and growth potential.

Why I Recommend WordPress for Bloggers

WordPress is the world’s most popular website builder, powering over 43% of the web. While Blogger is a great starting point, WordPress offers the freedom you need to grow.

We use WordPress for WPBeginner because it allows us to customize, optimize, and scale without limits.

Here are the main benefits of switching:

• Full Control Over Design and Layout: Customize your site with themes, page builders, and your own code if you want.
• Extensive Plugin Library: Add almost any feature, from contact forms to SEO tools to eCommerce functionality.
• Better SEO Options: Full control over URLs, meta tags, sitemaps, and more to help your blog rank higher.
• Ownership and Portability: You fully own your site and content, making it easier to move or back up.
• Monetization Flexibility: Add ads, sell products, or run memberships with ease.

Switching to WordPress sets your blog up for long-term growth, and the best part is, it’s not as complicated as it might seem.

That said, let’s see how to easily move from a custom domain blog in Blogger to WordPress. Here are all the steps that I will be covering in this guide:

• Step 1: Set Up Your WordPress Website
• Step 2: Update Your Domain to Point to WordPress
• Step 3: Remove the Domain Redirect in Blogger
• Step 4: Install WordPress
• Step 5: Export Your Content From Blogger
• Step 6: Import Your Blogger Content into WordPress
• Step 7: Set Up Permalinks for Your WordPress Blog
• Step 8: Set Up Feed Redirects
• Step 9: Customizing Your WordPress Site
• Step 10: Extend Your WordPress Site with Plugins
• Frequently Asked Questions About Moving from Blogger to WordPress
• Additional Resources for Your New WordPress Site

Step 1: Set Up Your WordPress Website

Before I dive in, it’s important to know that this guide is for self-hosted WordPress.org sites. If you’re not sure about the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com, check out our guide on WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.

To move your Blogger blog, you’ll first need a WordPress hosting provider to set up your self-hosted WordPress website.

I recommend Bluehost because it’s officially recommended by WordPress and offers WPBeginner users an exclusive deal: a free domain, free SSL, and hosting starting at just $2.99 per month.

To claim this exclusive offer, just click on the button below:

If you want another option, SiteGround is a great alternative and offers a special deal for WPBeginner users.

Step 2: Update Your Domain to Point to WordPress

To make your custom domain work with your new WordPress site, you need to update its DNS (Domain Name System) settings.

Think of DNS as the Internet’s address book. Right now, your domain points visitors to Blogger. You need to update it to point to your new WordPress host.

If you want to understand DNS better, check out our guide on domain names and how they work.

The main way to do this is by changing your domain’s nameservers. Your WordPress hosting provider will give you at least two nameserver addresses, which usually look something like this:

NS1.Bluehost.com
NS2.Bluehost.com

I recommend keeping these handy before you start, because you’ll need to enter them when updating your domain.

The process is slightly different depending on where you registered your domain.

Below, I’ll walk you through GoDaddy and Network Solutions, two of the most popular registrars.

If your domain is with a different provider, see our full guide on how to change domain nameservers.

Updating DNS Settings in GoDaddy

If your domain is registered with GoDaddy and pointed to Blogger, log in to your GoDaddy account and go to ‘Domains’ under My Account.

Find your domain, click the three-dot menu, and select ‘Edit DNS.’

This will take you to the DNS records page.

Here, locate the A and CNAME records that point to Blogger and delete them.

Next, go back to your domain settings and switch to the DNS » Nameservers tab.

Then click the ‘Change Nameservers’ button.

This will bring up a pop-up where you need to click on ‘I’ll use my own nameservers’ and enter the nameservers provided by your WordPress host.

Once you do that, click ‘Save’ to apply your changes.

Updating DNS Settings in Network Solutions

If your domain is with Network Solutions, log in to your account and click ‘Domains’ in the left menu.

Once the new page opens up, click ‘Settings’ next to your domain name.

Then scroll down to the ‘Advanced Tools’ section and expand it.

Click ‘Manage’ next to ‘Advanced DNS Records.’

From here, you need to delete any CNAME and A records you added to point to Blogger.

After that, go back to the ‘Advanced Tools’ section.

Now, click the ‘Manage’ link next to ‘Nameservers (DNS).’

This will open a popup, where you can enter the nameservers provided by your WordPress hosting provider.

Then, simply click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

As with GoDaddy, DNS changes may take 1–2 days to fully propagate. Don’t worry if your WordPress site doesn’t appear immediately—this is completely normal.

Step 3: Remove the Domain Redirect in Blogger

After changing your domain’s DNS settings, you also need to remove the redirect from your Blogger blog.

By default, your original blogspot.com address redirects visitors to your custom domain. Since your domain is now pointing to WordPress, this redirect is no longer needed.

To do this, log in to your Blogger account and go to the ‘Settings’ page. Under the ‘Publishing’ section, click on your custom domain.

You’ll see a popup showing your custom domain name. Click the ‘Delete’ button to remove it.

A warning pop-up will appear to confirm your action. Click ‘Delete’ again.

Don’t worry—this only disconnects Blogger from your domain and does not delete your blog content.

That’s it! Your custom domain is now fully pointing to your WordPress hosting provider. I recommend double-checking your domain in a browser after a few hours to make sure everything is working as expected.

Step 4: Install WordPress

Once your domain’s DNS has fully propagated, you’re ready to install WordPress on your hosting provider.

If your domain is registered with a third-party service separate from your hosting provider, you’ll first need to add your domain to your hosting account.

If you’re using Bluehost, log in to your account dashboard and click the ‘Add Site’ button under the ‘Websites’ tab.

This will launch the Add Site wizard.

Make sure ‘Install WordPress’ is selected as the site type, then click ‘Continue.’

Next, you’ll be asked to enter a site title. You can use the same title as your old Blogger blog, but don’t worry—you can always change it later if needed.

Click ‘Continue’ to move to the next step.

Now, enter your custom domain name in the domain field and click ‘Continue.’

The wizard will handle installing WordPress for you.

Once the installation is complete, you’ll return to the ‘Websites’ screen in your Bluehost dashboard. Your new site will be listed there.

Simply click the ‘Edit Site’ button to access your WordPress dashboard.

Bluehost may ask a few additional questions to finish your setup. If it asks you to verify your domain ownership, and you just changed your nameservers, you may need to wait a few hours for the changes to propagate before proceeding.

Otherwise, you can follow the prompts to access your WordPress dashboard.

If you’re using a different hosting provider, most of them offer one-click WordPress installers, making the process just as simple.

I recommend checking our complete WordPress installation tutorial if you need extra help.

Once WordPress is installed on your custom domain, you’re ready to move on to importing your content from Blogger.

Step 5: Export Your Content From Blogger

Exporting your Blogger content is a little different from how it used to be. Google now links the Blogger export feature to its Atom feed format, which doesn’t work directly with WordPress.

That means you’ll need to download your Blogger site’s feed first, and then you can use it to import your content into WordPress.

You can start by logging in to your Blogger dashboard and going to the ‘Settings’ tab from the left-hand menu.

Here, scroll down to the ‘Site Feed’ section and make sure the ‘Allow Blog Feed’ setting is set to ‘Full.’ Then, click on ‘Save’.

This step is important because WordPress needs the complete content of your posts to import properly.

If your feed is set to something like ‘None,’ WordPress won’t be able to grab the full content of your posts. This can result in missing text, images, or formatting.

Once your feed is set to Full, open your Blogger site in a new tab and go to your site’s feed URL. You can do this by using the following URL format:

https://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?max-results=500

Make sure to replace YOURBLOGNAME with your actual blog’s name. Adding ?max-results=500 at the end ensures that the feed includes up to 500 of your latest posts, rather than just the default 25.

I recommend copying this feed URL and saving it in a safe place. You’ll need it in the next step to export your Blogger content into WordPress.

Step 6: Import Your Blogger Content into WordPress

Now that you have copied your Blogger content feed URL, it’s time to bring that content into WordPress.

WordPress doesn’t have a built-in feature to fetch content from external feeds, so you’ll need a plugin to do this. I recommend using WPematico RSS Feed Fetcher because it’s free, reliable, and easy to use.

First, install and activate the plugin. If you’re unsure how to do this, see our tutorial on installing WordPress plugins.

Once the plugin is activated, go to the WPematico » Settings page in your WordPress dashboard. Here, you’ll need to configure some global settings before fetching your Blogger feed.

I recommend checking the boxes to ‘store images locally’ and selecting ‘use the first image in content as the featured image.’

Next, scroll down to the ‘Advanced Fetching’ section. Here, you’ll see that the timeout for running campaigns is set to 300 seconds by default.

I suggest increasing this to 3000. This allows WPematico enough time to fetch all your posts and images without timing out, especially if your Blogger site has a lot of content.

After making these changes, don’t forget to click ‘Save Settings.’

Now, go to WPematico » Add New Campaign. This opens the campaign editor, where you’ll set up your Blogger feed import.

I recommend giving your campaign a clear, identifiable name, such as ‘Blogger Import’ or your blog’s name, so you can easily recognize it later.

Scroll down to the ‘Feeds for this Campaign’ section and click the ‘+ Add Feed’ button. Then, paste the feed URL of your Blogger site here.

Then, move to the ‘Options for this campaign’ section. Here, change the ‘Max items to create on each fetch’ to a number like 100 or 1,000, depending on how many posts you have. This ensures WPematico imports all your content without skipping posts.

You can also choose whether to open comments, assign an author, and keep the original post dates.

Once everything is set, click ‘Publish’ to save your campaign.

Finally, go to the WPeMatico » All Campaigns page. You’ll see your new campaign listed there.

Click the ‘Play’ icon next to your campaign name to start importing your Blogger content into WordPress.

I suggest double-checking your WordPress site after the import to make sure all posts, images, and videos have transferred correctly.

Step 7: Set Up Permalinks for Your WordPress Blog

WordPress comes with a feature that lets you create SEO-friendly URLs for your posts. Since you’re importing content from Blogger, I recommend setting your permalink structure to closely match your old Blogger URLs.

This helps preserve SEO and ensures your visitors don’t encounter broken links.

To do this, go to Settings » Permalinks in your WordPress dashboard. In the ‘Custom Structure’ field, paste the following:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html

This setup usually matches Blogger URLs. However, I recommend opening one of your old blog posts and comparing the URL to the new WordPress version to be sure.

If they match, you are good to go. If you notice any broken links or mismatched URLs, don’t worry—you don’t need to edit code manually.

I suggest using All in One SEO with its Redirection Manager addon. It lets you safely redirect old Blogger URLs to the new WordPress URLs.

The plugin handles 301 redirects, prevents broken links, and tracks redirect errors, all without touching your site’s code.

After setting the permalinks, check a few posts to make sure the URLs are working correctly and pointing to the right pages.

For a detailed walkthrough, you can follow our guide on how to do a full site redirect in WordPress.

Step 8: Set Up Feed Redirects

You’ve successfully moved your Blogger content to WordPress, but there’s one more important step.

If people have subscribed to your Blogger RSS feed, they will stop receiving updates unless you redirect those feed requests to your new WordPress feeds.

I recommend doing this by editing the .htaccess file in your WordPress site’s root folder. If you can’t find your .htaccess file, check out our tutorial on locating and editing .htaccess.

Note: This step applies to sites running on Apache servers (like Bluehost). If you are using NGINX or a managed hosting provider and cannot find this file, please reach out to your hosting support team, and they can set up these redirects for you.

Start by connecting to your WordPress site using an FTP client.

Make sure to enable the ‘Force showing hidden files’ option in your FTP client settings, as the .htaccess file is hidden by default. If you’re using FileZilla, you can find this option in the ‘Server’ menu.

Once connected, you’ll find the .htaccess file in your WordPress site’s root directory (usually a folder named public_html).

Open this file for editing and paste the following code before any other code:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteRule atom.xml /feed? [L,R=301]
   RewriteRule rss.xml /feed? [L,R=301]
   RewriteRule ^feeds/posts/?.*$ /feed? [L,R=301]
   RewriteRule ^feeds/comments/?.*$ /comments/feed? [L,R=301]
</IfModule>

After that, save your changes and upload the .htaccess file back to your server.

With this in place, anyone who subscribed to your Blogger RSS feed will now automatically receive updates from your new WordPress site.

Step 9: Customizing Your WordPress Site

Now that your content is on WordPress, it’s time to make your site look great. In WordPress, themes control the appearance of your website. They let you change your site’s colors, layout, fonts, navigation menus, and more.

By default, WordPress comes with a very simple theme that doesn’t offer many options.

Luckily, there are thousands of themes available, both free and premium, so you can find one that suits your style and needs. I suggest looking for a theme that is simple, flexible, and mobile-friendly, as simplicity is often the best design.

You won’t find a theme that looks exactly like your Blogger site, but you can pick one with a similar layout or color scheme.

Always choose themes from reliable sources, such as WordPress.org or well-known theme shops, to ensure security and support.

If you want inspiration, here are some curated lists of themes that work great for bloggers:

• Best free WordPress blog themes
• Best simple WordPress themes
• Minimalist WordPress themes for writers

Once you have found a theme, you can install it. For this, take a look at our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress theme.

If you want more control over your design without touching code, you can also use drag-and-drop page builders like SeedProd to create custom layouts and designs. This is a great option if you want a unique look for your WordPress site.

To get started, take a look at our guide on how to create a WordPress theme from scratch.

Step 10: Extend Your WordPress Site with Plugins

One of the biggest advantages of WordPress is the huge number of plugins available.

Think of plugins as apps for your website—they let you add new features and extend WordPress functionality without touching code.

As a beginner, you might wonder which plugins you should try first. Don’t worry—I’ve got you covered. Our team has put together a list of essential WordPress plugins that every new site should have to improve functionality, security, and performance.

WordPress isn’t just for blogs anymore. With the right plugins, you can turn your site into any type of website you can imagine.

For example, you can:

• Add an online store: You can use WooCommerce to sell physical products easily.
• Build a membership website: You can use MemberPress to sell subscriptions and premium content.
• Sell digital downloads: You can use Easy Digital Downloads to sell eBooks, art, or music.

As you start exploring WordPress, you’ll find that plugins make it easy to expand your site as your needs grow. And if you ever need help, WPBeginner is the largest resource site for WordPress beginners.

I recommend taking advantage of our free tutorials, guides, and tools to make the most of your new WordPress site.

Frequently Asked Questions About Moving from Blogger to WordPress

If you’re thinking about moving your blog from Blogger to WordPress, you might still have a few questions. I’ve answered some of the most common ones to help make your migration easier and less stressful.

1. Will I lose my SEO rankings when moving from Blogger to WordPress?

You shouldn’t lose your SEO rankings as long as you follow the steps in this guide. The key things are setting up the correct permalink structure and redirecting your RSS feeds.

This ensures that both search engines and visitors land on the correct pages on your new WordPress site.

2. Is WordPress free after I move from Blogger?

The WordPress software itself is free and open-source. However, running a self-hosted WordPress site (WordPress.org) requires a domain name and web hosting.

I recommend hosts that include a free domain, which keeps your startup costs very low.

3. How long does the migration from Blogger to WordPress take?

The active steps—exporting from Blogger and importing into WordPress—usually take under an hour. The part that takes the longest is waiting for DNS changes to propagate, which can take anywhere from a few hours to up to 48 hours.

4. Will my images be moved to WordPress?

Yes. Using a plugin like WPeMatico in WordPress will bring the images from your Blogger posts and add them to your new WordPress media library.

5. What should I do with my old Blogger blog after the migration?

I recommend not deleting your old Blogger blog. Once you’ve confirmed everything moved successfully, set your Blogger blog’s visibility to private. This keeps it as a private backup while making it unavailable to visitors and search engines.

Additional Resources for Your New WordPress Site

Now that your site is running on WordPress, you can start taking it to the next level.

Here are some essential guides I recommend:

• Ultimate WordPress SEO Guide for Beginners – Learn how to optimize your new site to rank higher in search engines and get more traffic.
• Proven Tips to Increase Your Blog Traffic – Discover actionable strategies that we use to grow our traffic and audience.
• The Ultimate WordPress Security Guide – Protect your new website from security threats with this comprehensive step-by-step guide.
• Make the Most of WPBeginner’s Free Resources – Find out how to use our tutorials, videos, and guides to become a WordPress pro.

I hope this article helped you move your custom domain blogger blog to WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on the difference between a domain name and web hosting or our expert pick of the best WordPress hosting providers.

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