1. insert this code:
/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
in the custom permalink area, then use a wordpress redirection plugin to clean everything up… (like: http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/, or http://hellosam.net/project/blogger-redirector, or one of the ones on wordpress.

-OR-

2. just choose month and name from the wordpress option, then use a plugin wp-maintain-blogger-permalinks-1.1 WordPress plugin, that this blog has: http://justinsomnia.org/2006/10/maintain-permalinks-moving-from-blogger-to-wordpress/.

-OR-

combine both.. meaning customize with this /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html, then also use a plugin for redirection and use the permalink plugin from number 2

what do you guys think?

thanks so much

okay so im in the midst of transferring my blog from blogger to wordpress.
and b/c funds are low, im doing it all myself.

so ive searched the internet far and wide on how do this without loosing any traffic/google index/etc.

and though everyone very generally says something similar, i still would love any type of help from a professional or someone who know what they’re doing. and you all seem to know what you’re doing.

question…

I just changed the name of my site from: myname.blogspot.com to http://www.myname.com... how long do you think it’ll take for google to reindex everything, and do i really have to wait until they do to start the work on my wordpress blog? though my information still shows as blogspot in google search, all the postings are showing up as ww.myname.com/thepostingname within the blog… so couldnt i import them now?

This is the basic process I use and it’s pretty similar to what you outlined above:

1. Set up the new domain with WP on it (but keep indexing off).

2. Import the Blogger blog to the new WP blog (there’s an option within the WP control panel under “Tools”, you don’t need to even download anything.

3. Clean up the formatting of the new WP posts. This can be a real pain for blogs with a ton of posts because WP unfortunately picks up a lot of funky Blogger style tags.

You also have to make sure that the images transferred properly and that they’re being linked to their new locations on your domain, and not still pointing to where they were hosted on Blogger. Ditto for video embeds; sometimes Blogger uses its own player to embed video so you have to make sure they’re pointing to Youtube or wherever, instead of back to the old blog.

4. Write a post on the Blogger blog that the site is moving and people should update their bookmarks/RSS feeds.

4. Once the new blog is set up, you can do a 302 redirect from Blogger to the new domain (using JavaScript – http://underscorebleach.net/jotsheet/2006/05/move-blogger-to-wordpress).

5. Turn indexing back on in WP. Use the Sitemap generator plugin to create a sitemap for the new domain and submit it to Google/Bing webmaster tools.

6. Transfer the RSS feed.. this is easier if you’re using FeedBurner but you’ll probably lose some subscribers in the process.

6. I leave the 302 up and running for a few weeks while the new blog gets indexed. During this time you should be reminding people to subscribe to the new feed and update their bookmarks. I also email any bloggers or sites with inbound links to the Blogspot domain and ask them to update their links to the new domain.

7. After it’s indexed and working properly, I shut off the 302 redirect, write a post on Blogger that the domain has moved, and add a “NoIndex” META to the template header in blogger so you can avoid dupe content issues.

It’s not a perfect solution and you’ll still get people showing up at the old blog but it’s probably better in the long-run to be on your own domain. Maybe someday Blogger will allow for 301 redirects but until then…

I’m just waiting for cross domain support of canonical tags.