This WordPress tutorial introduces the detailed steps to merge multiple separate WordPress sites into one multisite installation. Instead of managing all the websites independently, you can easily handle all of your websites in one single dashboard.
Many bloggers, especially the full-time ones, have more than one websites, especially most of them host their websites on WordPress hosting. However, it’s a tedious task to manage all the websites in their own dashboard respectively. Since Version 3.0, WordPress provides new multisite feature which allows users run many blogs, even with their own separate domain names, on one WordPress installation.
This article presents the process to migrate multiple WordPress installations into one new WordPress multisite. You can even migrate sites that are using their own domain as well as a subdomain on your main domain. Note that we demonstrate this process with websites hosted on cPanel hosting. You have to adapt to instructions if you utilize something else to configure your server.
Back Up WordPress Websites
Before starting, you need to backup the multiple WordPress websites respectively. If you are not clear the operation, follow the other tutorial or utilize a suitable backup plugin. Besides, you can also back up your entire website files via FTP so that you backup the website, plugins as well as themes at once.
Export WordPress Websites
Now, you can start to merge. The first thing is to export the dedicated WordPress websites. This process is very easy to handle, and you can accomplish it on the dashboard without any other plugins.
In every single WordPress website admin panel, go to Tools – > Export, choose All content option to export all of your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, terms, navigation menus and custom posts in an XML file. And at last, click the bottom blue button Download Export File.
Note that some plugins may conflict with the export process, and you can disallow all plugins before exporting. As well, some widgets configuration and plugin settings are not exported in this way. We suggest you back up the
Import Dedicated WordPress Sites into one Multisite
Before start to import, you should make sure your WordPress installation is featured with multisite. As mentioned above, only WordPress 3.0 or higher version includes this feature. If your website does not include multisite, we suggest you install the latest WordPress 3.6.1.
Activate Multisite
Activate multisite feature in your WordPress installation. To complete this step, you need to editing wp-config.php to define multisite, create a network and enable the network. If you are still unclear about this step, see the instructions in the codex on how to Create a Network.
Create websites for each site you prepare to import
Now, you can create websites for each site which you prepare to import. Go to Sites – > Add New, you can see the following screen where you can configure the website domain and path.
Be careful to choose the name because changing it can cause admin redirection, which is the most important part if you are migrating a site within the same hosting account.
Import WXR files for every site
At present, everything is prepared well, and you can start to import all single WXR files of the dedicated websites into the multisite installation. Go to the backend of each site and import their WXR respectively. Go to Tools – > Import, choose WordPress, and then select the WXR file to import.
Note that if you import images from the original sites, you need to make sure they have been uploaded in the right place and displayed properly in the posts and pages.
As well, you should check that whether your plugins and themes work well. If some plugins are not supported, don’t install it again but find the suitable ones to replace.
Edit WordPress Configuration for Each Site
At last, configure the settings, widget, and other things for each site. By the end of this step, every website should look well as it performed before, only the URL yourdomain.example.com or example.com/yourdomain rather than the right URL. If you want your new sites to own their respective domain, you can map domains as well.
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