Migrate my old posts to WordPress? I'm a long-time (original) user here, and I also run a (self-hosted) WordPress blog.
In an ideal world, I'd love to be able to "slurp" all of my old posts here, into that blog.
I've spotted a couple of people around here on the + who are experimenting with the same notion, but none are having terribly good results.
One found a plugin that worked, but didn't preserve the post date (everything appears in WordPress as having been authored today). Another found a different (old, no longer supported version) plugin that worked perfectly with the time stamp, but which didn't do collections (most of my posts here the last several years have been to collections).
Anyone here trying to do the same? Any luck?
In an ideal world, I'd love to be able to "slurp" all of my old posts here, into that blog.
I've spotted a couple of people around here on the + who are experimenting with the same notion, but none are having terribly good results.
One found a plugin that worked, but didn't preserve the post date (everything appears in WordPress as having been authored today). Another found a different (old, no longer supported version) plugin that worked perfectly with the time stamp, but which didn't do collections (most of my posts here the last several years have been to collections).
Anyone here trying to do the same? Any luck?
I would suspect soon people will be creating scripts that can parse Google Take Out files and populate CMS's with the results. If you wanted to start some buzz, join the Wordpress Slack channel and mention your idea and see if you can get people interested. If you can't do it yourself, start small. See if you can get people interested in just importing the images into Wordpress, then posts... etc. Start small, build on it.
ReplyDeleteThere are absolutely no technical barriers. Time/money, yes. Technology? No problem.
Google did say they will add an export, I'd say wait until it comes out then look into how to import that data.
ReplyDeleteIt should not be too difficult to write import routines for Google Take Out data to get it into 3rd party systems. However: I tried to export my posts today and Google reported errors. So I think their export routines are shitty. We may loose content.
ReplyDeletestefan holzhauer I wonder if that's just the volume of people trying to export.
ReplyDeleteAs I had been posting to both mediums, this is not an issue. Anything of value is already there.
ReplyDeletestefan holzhauer I think we can expect Google to improve Takeout in the coming 10 months ... But Takeout will only preserve your data - not others' comments. They don't belong to you.
ReplyDeleteEvery html file type I downloaded failed. Others have recommended downloading the json files. I am going to try that next.
ReplyDeleteA plugin to import either should be possible depending on what the data look like.
JSON maybe easier to handle than the HTML.
I have not been able to see either format.
I am sure the servers are swamped right now with everyone trying same thing.
I am going to be doing an IndieWeb MeetUp where I we will cover WordPress options.
Greg Mcverry I am thinking this:https://wordpress.org/plugins/json-content-importer/ or something like this I am actually truly not worried about the expert data.
ReplyDeleteWe had members of the Data Liberation Front at Google, who oversee the data portability project.
They are going to get the data export right.
Though there are layers of lawyers and bean counters between engineers and your data.
wordpress.org - JSON Content Importer
I found this: github.com - snarfed/freedom on the Google+ page of indieweb
ReplyDeleteGreg Mcverry NOT SAFE... not maintained.
ReplyDeleteTheoretically you should be able to make a static dump of the comments manually through the API ( https://developers.google.com/+/web/api/rest/latest/comments/list) based on the activity IDs in your Google+ Takeout archive. Not sure how legal it would be to republish those comments on your own site, as you don't have a license agreement for (re-)publication with each individual commenter, but for a personal archive it could be useful.
ReplyDeletedevelopers.google.com - Comments: list | Google+ Platform for Web | Google Developers
Filip H.F. Slagter If you are using Python, this would be invaluable:
ReplyDeletecrummy.com - Beautiful Soup Documentation — Beautiful Soup 4.4.0 documentation
John Lewis if you feel like scraping the data, sure. But if you use the API combined with the JSON-based Google Takeout archive, you should only need a JSON parser. Cleaner and quicker imho, and gets you more meta-data than by scraping the individual pages. Plus, less chance of getting blocked by Google for excessive scraping.
ReplyDeleteFilip H.F. Slagter It is debatable in terms of GDPR, Instagram for example, felt comments belonged to original person and they don't come along in export.
ReplyDeleteI like the Martin Luther rule, you tack a letter on to the door of someone else's house they get to keep it but you can post it anywhere else as well.
John Lewis Not maintained but I trust Snarfed and I know folks in the IndieWeb WordPress community would help...but I agree I think any of the json to WP post will be easiest...well G+ to Blogger is easiest as that is quite possible now I believe
ReplyDeleteBlogger for now still offers Google+ Comments 😂 I guess that'll also disappear soon.
ReplyDeleteTravis Owens where did you read about export being offered? I'm really shocked at the lack of communication with us other than this sudden post on their blog. You'd think they'd arrange a notification for every G+ user with a clear statement and timeline for further information / action on the G+ shutdown.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis I have 23GB G+ data, and getting errors on takeout. Google will have to make a cleaner export tool. The errors are probably due to the changes Google did a couple years back (their last upgrade to G+ before letting it die. One of those updates is the date changes. Used to be all posts had exact date and time. Not this 10hr or 23w junk). Like each time they removed a feature and added it to G Suite -- Hangouts; the gallery changes; and My Business (statistics).
ReplyDeleteSimon Waddington I doubt they have any idea yet how they're going to handle it. People way higher up the food chain than the G+ engineers made the announcement.
ReplyDeleteThere a all sorts of things that will need to be resolved, which is why nothing's going away until at least August next year.
Julie Wills Takeout has been available for long time. Just need one sample JSON archive to test with existing WordPress plugins.
ReplyDeleteThe data structure will not change between now and August 19.
But I think you are right. Google will help figure out even more seemless imports between now and then.
I think everyone's archive downloads failed as we probably overwhelmed servers with announcement.
Greg Mcverry I know Takeout has been around for a long time, but I was referring to the problems some of have been having with it.
ReplyDeleteGreg Mcverry But we need our data to move elsewhere and can't wait 9 months to get our data without errors.
ReplyDelete10 month warning is a lot of time, but if you're going to Wordpress, you have to build your site from the ground up again. That takes time, and with Wordpress, money.
Agree. I am hoping we wil get plenty of time. I am hoping the errors in json downloads were server issues.
ReplyDeleteI am sure lawyers are sitting around debating who owns what and do they need different rules in EU.
I am sure we will have some periods of unsureness.
Yet I do trust Google more than any of the other players to get data portability right.
Getting stuff into WordPress....well when you move to React overnight leaving your entire corp of PHP developers scratching their heads... not so sure about.
Though it will make JSON import easier. There will be good tools.
If anyone has a donwloaded file set happy to try existing plugins.