WP Migration Technique

I have a small, simple WP site that currently runs on GoDaddy. What would be the easiest way to move it over to Netlify? Thanks.

Hi there, welcome back.

There are a couple of different approaches to this - it depends a bit on complexity and setup.

This might be interesting/helpful for your purposes:

A full answer requires more information on your part.

First, WordPress cannot be run on Netlify, so you cannot literally move your WordPress installation to Netlify.

Second, you need to specify if you just need the information from your WordPress install transferred over as a more-or-less static site, or if you still want it to function as a blog or CMS. Transferring the site as it current appears to the visitor is trivial, using SiteSucker, HTTrack, Blue Crab, etc., which basically save your dynamic WordPress pages as static pages, allowing you to transfer your pages to Netlify.

Third, to continue the ability you currently have with WordPress to add new content and have all the navigation automagically generated behind the scenes, you will need to transition from WordPress to Gatsby or Jekyll or Hugo or Eleventy or one of the other static site generators (some make this transition easier to do than others), at which time you can then take up in the static site generator of your choice where you left off with WordPress. Note: This will NOT be an easy transition, no matter what.

Third, if by some outside chance you want to continue to run WordPress on GoDaddy but present the results in Netlify (ala Shifter), then you will need to implement a different way to handle site search, contact forms, and any other dynamic pages you currently have in WordPress.

Fourth, if by some really out-of this-world chance you want to continue to run WordPress on GoDaddy but access the data for a static site on Netlify using WordPress APIs, this can be done, too, but it is very very very not easy.

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Thank you for your extensive answer.

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As mentioned by another user, your contact forms, comment forms, and search will no longer work as they require server-side processing. You’ll need to look for 3rd-party replacements. I’d suggest Netlify for contact forms. Check out some more alternatives here: https://serverless.css-tricks.com/

I’d suggest a 2-step approach: 1) short-term and 2) long-term.

  1. For the short-term, my advice will only work if your site doesn’t rely on server-side processing like forms. First, create a new repo on Github, then on your WP site, install Simply Static and have it export your site pages and files. Commit those files to your repo. Connect that repo with Netlify. This will immediately allow you to display your site.

However, do not remove your original WP site from Godaddy just yet. And I highly suggest moving your Godaddy site to your own local environment if you’re a developer. In any case, back up your site as is in case this doesn’t meet your needs in the interim.

  1. For the long-term and actual replacement, you’ll need to install 11ty on your local computer. You’ll also need to install a plugin for Wordpress, called Wordpress to Jekyll. Although, I’ve tried it with success, it’s been a couple years. 11ty supports Liquid out of the box, the same template language Jekyll uses.

If you don’t know 11ty, check out Bryan Robinson on YouTube who has recorded a series on it.

Wordpress to Jekyll should export all WP’s common post types as markdown files. To export posts of custom post types, you’ll need to read the Wordpress to Jekyll instructions. After the markdown files have been exported, place them into your 11ty project folder. You may have to perform some changes to each of the markdown pages that get created by the Jekyll exporter, too.

Not to mention WP uses PHP templates and 11ty uses Liquid, so you’ll need to manually convert your templates from one language to the other. So, it’s on you to get to know Liquid and 11ty.

Once everything is in order, you can build out your site with 11ty and replace it with the short-term solution mentioned earlier.

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these are great suggestions, @djmtype!

Thank you, but my site is only 4 pages with only text and images.

Sounds like rebuilding on a different platform, and copy pasting things over might be simplest. Never a good idea to overcomplicate :slight_smile:

You can just use the short-term approach I posted earlier with Simply Static. It will export your assets and WP pages as static HTML. Then, you can store them on a Github and serve them with Netlify.