Despite the fact that I have many many changes going on in my life (moving to Nashville, blogging full time, trying to write a book, going to Asia in two weeks) I decided I'd switch blogging platforms. Oh, let me tell you I decided to do it this weekend while in Dallas for my 10 year high school reunion. Because, I thought, it will be a piece of cake. And because I had time in between going to the doctor to get typhoid pills.
For the past couple weeks I've been working on my Squarespace site. Making sure everything looked right before transferring EVERYTHING over from Blogger. I thought, you know, I need to graduate from Blogger.
I do like Squarespace. It's super easy to manipulate whether or not you're a blog designer. It's very clean and apparently has built in SEO. But, I'll likely never know if that's the case.
On Monday I was sitting at my parents breakfast room table, eating a whole wheat waffle from Trader Joe's with a Diet Coke. With a swift click of the mouse, I moved from Blogger to Squarespace. I made a few tweaks, made sure all my posts were there and made sure the images looked good. I chuckled to myself that I might not actually post today.
But there was a problem. Every single link from every single blog post from the past 3 + years was broken. In case you're wondering, I've posted 1,035 (now 1,036) on this blog. And every single link was broken.
I looked like this:
After breathing in and out and trying not to stab my computer screen I contacted customer support. After waiting hours they came back with “we're not really sure.” But there is a solution.
The solution?
I could manually edit all 1,000+ posts to redirect from their old name to their new blog address. Did I mention their new blog address was www.heleneinbetween.com/heleneinbetween/leneinbetween/the_title_of_the_post/2012/9/11/htm.html
I'm not making that up.
After tossing and turning last night I decided, nope. This just isn't going to work. I need my Blogger back.
So today, I called GoDaddy and with a few simple clicks of the mouse I was back up and running with Blogger. And you know, I like Blogger. I know it like the back of my hand, and maybe that isn't such a bad thing.
The lesson here, is if you do decide to move platforms you might need a little more help than reading random tutorials online. Or when you have a million things on your plate. And honestly, what's wrong with blogger anyway?
Nothing.
In fact, I think it might just be the best platform out there. Sometimes I think my blog needs to be one way or another based on what others do. But I'm wrong. My blog is great how it is. And I probably just need to shut up and move on.
I've learned a valuable lesson: sometimes you just need a little help and it's okay to be completely satisfied with where you are. Or something like that.
