If you run multiple WordPress websites or blogs, but one of the websites is much more developed at a certain point you might decide that the best of the two worlds would be two merge two WordPress blogs into one.
So how can we do merge your multiple wordpress websites into single ?
1. Export content from each of the old websites you will be closing soon
First thing to do is to immediately create SQL data and WordPress sites backup, so if something goes wrong you can easily restore.
Next From wordpress admin area wp-admin
Visit
Tools -> Export
Make sure, the All Content option is selected like shown in above screenshot and click on
Download Export File button
The downloaded files will have a copy of all yours
– Posts and pages
– Custom Post Types
– All included categories and tags
Once we have transferred the file to the Website with which we're going to merge old WP content, we need to install the Import plugin
To do so navigate to:
Tools -> Import -> (Intall now)
Tools -> Run Importer
You will be asked for the file you just dumped into the second wordpress install which you'll be merging
Wordpress will start importing, your Export file and analyze it, then you will be redirected to
Import Settings Page
Assign Authors (that should be your account or the account with which the primary blog has most posts and with which you'll be merging).
Hopefully all will be fine with import and you will get the success page:
One last step is to set properly redirects so that the transition merge from the Old Website to the New one does not impact your website Search Engine Optimization Ratings.
The redirects are made via .htaccess file it will be located in the Document Root (Or main directory) of your wordpress installed websites for example if your website is located under /var/www/wordpress-site your .htaccess file will be located under /var/www/wordpress-site/.htaccess
Open the file (SITUATED ON THE OLD WORDPRESS WEBSITE THAT YOU'LL BE MERGING) with editor directly on the server or if it is a shared hosting, download it and edit it at your side.
To the beginning of it add the following Apache ModRewrite code:
#Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.newsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Replace inside above example http://www.newsite.com with the name of the primary domain name to which we're merging (e.g. the merging domain and not the one we merge).
If you experience some problems with pictures or you like to Merge Bulk Edit categories and tags read import external images to wordpress as well as how to merge bulk edit categories in tags in WordPress
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Tags: howto, merge, multiple, two, websites, websites into single, Wordpress
