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Import from WordPress

In this guide you copy a WordPress site into Hatamoto with the import wizard in the admin. At the end your pages, posts, images, menus and authors are in Hatamoto, and you have a report that lists every old address and anything that needs a look.

Before you start

  • A Hatamoto site you can sign in to as an owner, the role that can do everything. Only owners see the import.
  • Your WordPress site, still online. The import reads from it; it never changes it.
  • One of these from WordPress:
    • A WordPress username with an application password, a separate password WordPress makes for programs. Create one in WordPress under Users > Profile > Application Passwords. With it, the import also reads drafts, private posts, menus and settings.
    • Or an export file from WordPress: Tools > Export > All content. The wizard accepts files up to 256 MB. Images are then downloaded from the addresses inside the file, so the old site must stay online.

Steps

Scan the old site

  1. In the Hatamoto admin, open Settings > Import & export > WordPress import (/admin/settings/import/wordpress).
  2. Under From the site's address, fill in Site address, WordPress username and Application password. Or, under From an export file, choose your file.
  3. Select Scan the site. The scan reads the old site and writes nothing to your content.
  4. Read the Scan report. It shows:
    • How many posts, pages, drafts, images, categories, tags, authors and menus it found.
    • Your WordPress permalink structure, the rule WordPress uses to build post addresses, and whether Hatamoto can use the same rule.
    • Plugins it noticed, such as an SEO plugin, a page builder, a form plugin or a multilingual plugin.
    • Expected fidelity: the share of items that come across without loss, and each item that does not, with the reason.
    • A warning if the site is in several languages. Every language is imported and tagged with its own locale. Only the site language is public, because one install serves one language.

Choose and run

  1. Select Choose what to import. On Import options, pick the content types, the kinds of content such as posts and pages, to bring across, and switch Menus, Drafts, private and password-protected content and Download images and files on or off.
  2. Under URL structure, choose whether to copy the WordPress permalinks. Copying them keeps most old addresses exactly the same. If your Hatamoto site already has content, this choice is not offered: its address rules stay, and every old address that moves gets a 301 redirect, a permanent forward to the new address.
  3. Select Start the import. The page refreshes by itself while it works. You may close it and come back; Stop the import keeps what is already imported, and you can resume later.

Review the report

  1. When it finishes, read the Report. It has these parts:
    • Items that failed, with the reason.
    • Pages to review: pages that came across with some loss, for example a page built with a page builder plugin, whose text is kept but whose layout is not. Each links to its edit screen.
    • Redirects created: the forwards from old addresses to new ones.
    • URL audit: every old address the import checked on this site, and those that do not lead to a page.
    • wp-content addresses left in the text: links to old WordPress files. This list should be empty.
  2. Open each page under Pages to review and fix it in the editor.

Pick up later changes

  1. If the old site changes before you switch over, open the finished report and select Re-sync from the old site. A re-sync updates what it imported earlier and never makes duplicates. It overwrites pages you edited in Hatamoto since the import, unless you switch on On a re-import, leave pages alone that I edited here since the last import. Re-sync only before you switch your domain over.

Check it worked

Open the URL audit part of the report. Every old address should be listed as passing: it answers directly, or forwards once with a 301 to a page that answers. Then visit a few old addresses on the new site in your browser and see the right page.

If the audit lists failures, open each one. A common cause is an address the import could not map, such as an old category page you removed. Add a redirect for it as shown in Keep old links working after a move.

If the scan fails to reach a site on your own network, such as a test copy at a private address, the wizard cannot read it. An administrator can run the same import from the server's command line with --allow-private-hosts; see the WordPress import reference.

Next steps