I decided to merge several small WordPress blogs into a single WordPress blog recently. I did this for several reasons, mostly as I wanted to concentrate the content in one site and also to reduce the time and effort of maintaining multiple blogs. Here are the steps to do this with screenshots.

How to import a WordPress blog into another WordPress blog

To import from a WordPress export file into a WordPress blog follow these steps.

Before you start

You’re going to make an Export file of each WordPress blog that you want to export (obviously).

Then you’re going to import each file into the target WordPress blog.

SIZE: you’re Export file can’t be larger than 8 meg. If you’re site is more than this, consider exporting the blog according to date or category. That way you can break it into chunks and re-assemble it later in the main WordPress blog.

1. EXPORT – Log into the blog you want to Export from as an Administrator.

IMPORTANT – You’re going to create an XML file which will contain pointers to all the posts, images etc on your blog. Note this export file does NOT have all the actual content. It’s just a series of instructions saying “go to this site and copy/paste in the content.”

This is not a backup of your WordPress blog.

2. Click Tools, Export from the side menu.

Follow the steps to export the file. Name the file to something you can remember. Don’t accept the default name, which is usually just the date.

Ok, you now have your export file.

3. IMPORT — log into the blog you want to Import to.

4. Click Tools, Import from the Admin panel.

5. Choose “WordPress” from the list of blogging platforms.

4. Upload the Import file.

5a. WordPress will ask you to map the authors (usually just you) to the target blog.

For each author, map to an existing user on the blog or to create a new user. Usually, the default settings are all you need unless you have created multiple authors.

5b. Select the Download and Import file attachments checkbox, if you want to import any attachments.

6. WordPress imports each of posts, comment, and category contained in this file into your blog.

Where are the blog posts?

When WordPress imported the files, it entered them into the new blog according to the date on the old blog.

So, if you wrote an article in May 2008, then this is where is will be on the new blog. WordPress doesn’t give it a new date (i.e. a timestamp) based on when you imported it.

Where are categories?

Double-check that Wordpress created categories for the posts you imported. It should do this. If not, go in and create new categories.

How to Import from an RSS feed

Save the RSS feed you want to import to your PC.

How?

Find the RSS link on your website, click it, view it in your browser, then copy/paste it into a text file.

In Wordpress:

1. Log into the blog as an Administrator.
2. Click Tools, Import, and Browse to the RSS feed you just saved.
3. Click Import to let it run.

Depending on the RSS feed, you may not get it loaded on the first attempt. One workaround is to determine how much was imported (check Manage, Posts) and then remove those sections from your saved RSS file. Re-import what’s outstanding.

Let me know how you got on doing this.

If you have any questions, please add them below. Glad to help out where I can.

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