With the migration to Blogger from WordPress, the most effort is going into dealing with post path differences. These differences will cause 404 (missing file) errors if not dealt with correctly. I wanted to be sure that people looking for my older WordPress posts would be appropriately redirected to the correct Blogger address.
My WordPress paths had this structure:
http://jason.ungos.com/2007/09/27/blog-downgrade/
On Blogger, the same post looks like this:
http://jason.ungos.com/2007/09/blog-downgrade.html
Here’s how I’m doing it.
- Setup a missing files host.
- Redirect visitor to new Blogger path.
Blogger Missing Files Host
The missing files host option was probably created to deal mostly with broken images or downloadable documents. I’ve expanded its use a bit by creating a custom 404 page that has some redirecting functionality.
The custom 404 page is a PHP script that:
- Checks the URI
- Determines what kind of document is being requested (post, tag search, etc.)
- Semi-intelligently determines the new URI, and
- Redirects the visitor.
Here’s what I have so far:
It’s neither elegant nor robust, but it achieves my main goal of dealing with old post links. I plan to develop this a little more to accommodate changed page names, broken images, and feeds.
Anything else I should add?
