flexihack is looking to transfer a self-hosted WordPress site entirely to Discourse, without integrating the two platforms. The goal is to move all content, including posts, images, and URLs with 301 redirects to maintain SEO and visits.
larry suggested using Sam’s blog plugin as a possible solution, but noted that it would require programming ability for customization. nahtnam pointed out that technically, it’s not possible to transfer a WordPress site to Discourse, as they serve different purposes.
probus questioned why using Discourse as a blogging platform wouldn’t be practical, and larry provided a possible workaround using the blog plugin, RSS/Atom feed polling, and custom fields to migrate posts and URLs.
nahtnam noted that without the blog plugin, Discourse would simply be a forum, but probus suggested using category permissions to restrict user posting.
sam mentioned that a bbpress importer could be adapted, but would require dev skills. Ultimately, flexihack found the suggestions helpful.
Hey everyone, I was wondering if there is any plugin or add-on to help me move everything on my site, currently running on WordPress (self-hosted) to Discourse - entirely. This means that the site is no longer powered by WP but Discourse. I really like this platform and was hoping I could use it for my main site.
Note: I’m not looking for a WP & Discourse integration. If it’s possible to transfer from WP to Discourse will my old urls will redirect to new url (301 redirect) so that it doesn’t hurt my SEO and visits. Thanks
Discourse is a discussion forum. Wordpress can be a blog or a more general content management system. The plugin I mentioned let’s you create a blog that runs on Discourse. As of last time I looked, it is not a point and click process and requires programming ability for any customization.
Like I said yesterday, I’m looking for a way to transfer from WP to Discourse. I’m not talking about integrating them but instead turning transferring posts, images, and stuff from WP to Discourse.
I wonder, what do you think is the problem with using Discourse as a blogging platform? Why isn’t it practical? To me, it looks like Discourse could quite well be used for blogging.
You’re not getting useful answers because wordpress can be used for many things (blogs, ecommerce, product sites, news portals, etc) and without seeing your site or knowing what it does, it’s hard to give good advice. Perhaps you could share a link?
Here’s roughly how you’d move your posts over and use it:
Generate the discourse topics by pointing the rss/atom feed polling feature to your current wordpress install. This would migrate the posts but not the urls.
In the discourse rails console, for each topic, create a custom field called permalink with the path portion of the post’s wordpress url.
Turn off feed polling and retire your wordpress site.
If your wordpress site is something like http://techcrunch.com/ or a product or company site where the ability to create pages with arbitrary urls with arbitrary content via a point and click interface is important discourse isn’t going to work very well.
