More Experiments in Blogging: Migration back to WordPress.com

NERD ALERT. Also note, this post was originally written around August 31, 2024, but because my blog was down (see story), I didn’t post this anywhere. So, two weeks later, the story can finally be told. Enjoy.

And the story continues… I sent the following message to the Happiness Engineers at WordPress.com:

Greetings. I requested to migrate my website from joebustillos.com to josephbrucebustillos.com on 08-23-2024, got the message that I would be contacted and that it would take 2 to 5 business days. It’s been five business days and no one contacted me (at joe.bustillos@gmail.com) and the site hasn’t been updated. Also I cannot find the “migration” setting/status on any dashboard. Thanks.

As noted in a previous post, I spent from Saturday until Tuesday double-checking that I had all of the posts on JoeBustillos.com and deleted all posts from JosephBruceBustillos.com just in case that complicated the migration with duplicate posts. It’s now Friday and JosephBruceBustillos.com looks like this:

2024-08-30 at 3.20.07 PM josephbrucebustillos.com wordpress.com status

I got a email response from wordpress.com that they got my support request and that they’ll get back to me within 24 hours. It’s 4:51PM, let’s see how this goes… (BTW, I haven’t posted on JoeBustillos.com since Friday, for fear of messing up the migration process… not posting is killing me. Besides this post, I’ve held off on four other posts… ACK.).

5:39PM. Got an email response with instructions on what they were going to do and what I needed to do to begin the process. Okay. This is already a better experience.

6:09PM. Just completed the steps given to me in the instructions and have sent the info via email to WordPress’ Happiness Engineers.

8:20PM. The WordPress Happiness Engineers acknowledge getting my information and will begin the process.

11:44PM. Just got word that they’ve completed the migration and that I should check to see that everything went as requested, looking at the front end (public view) and logging in as the owner. Then once I’m satisfied let them know so that they can finalize the migration. I’ll be double checking everything over the weekend, noting that with migrations in the past besides some posts not getting copied, media files would often either not copy over or the link would be damaged. And because, once I’m satisfied I will delete and cancel the BlueHost version, I really need to be sure before I pull the plug. I have made errors in the area before… for example, I don’t have editing access to my old LiveJournal blog because I cancelled the verification email address and there’s no way to get it back. Ugh. So, we’re gonna check with a fine tooth comb before the “delete and burn” maneuver. So, I guess we’re back on the air! That went way better than expected. Back to work.