Title: Importing posts with same permalinks…
Last modified: August 22, 2016

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# Importing posts with same permalinks…

 *  [goodwinj](https://wordpress.org/support/users/goodwinj/)
 * (@goodwinj)
 * [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/importing-posts-with-same-permalinks/)
 * What is the best practice / workflow for the following task….
 * I have a wordpress site with hundreds of posts using an older theme. On a separate
   development server, I am taking those posts and re-formatting them with page 
   builder, within a new theme (Divi). I want them to ultimately have the same permalink
   when I go to export / import those newly formatted posts into the live site which
   is on another server. When I do that, will they smoothly replace those posts 
   or will they create duplicates? What is the best full proof method I should implement?
 * Thanks in advance!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [TrishaM](https://wordpress.org/support/users/trisham/)
 * (@trisham)
 * [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/importing-posts-with-same-permalinks/#post-5689659)
 * When you say you are “reformatting” them, what exactly does that mean?
 * Generally a Theme only effects the layout and style, not the actual content, 
   so you can develop a new Theme using a ‘sandbox’ or development/staging site 
   using exported and imported content just so you can get the ‘look’ right. Occasionally
   as PHP functions get deprecated and replaced with new functions, that needs to
   be updated in the Theme as well, but again it doesn’t change the content, only
   how that content is queried and results returned.
 * As long as you’re not changing the actual content, then when you apply the new
   Theme, the ‘old’ content will simply look like it should in the new Theme.
 * And since ALL content in WP has it’s own database (record) ID, you will be duplicating
   content if you export it from your staging site and import it to your old site,
   unless you do something like BACKUP the existing (old site) database and then
   empty the tables via phpMyAdmin, THEN import the content. If it goes south, empty
   the tables again and restore from your backup.
 * A tip: If you do that (backuping your database then empty the tables before importing)
   be SURE that when you do the backup, do several -one of your whole DB, and then
   several smaller ones of only a few sequential tables at a time…..the reason is
   that MANY site hosts have a hard-coded timeout value on SQL queries, and a LARGE
   database backup may NOT restore before it times out…..if that happens, then you
   can try restoring the individual smaller database backups.
 *  Thread Starter [goodwinj](https://wordpress.org/support/users/goodwinj/)
 * (@goodwinj)
 * [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/importing-posts-with-same-permalinks/#post-5689729)
 * Hi Trisha, thank you for the tip with backing up, good to know!
 * When I saw I’m “re-formatting”, what I mean is the layout is going to change 
   with each post. So, the old version does not use page builder, it’s just content
   in the standard editing window. But with the new site, I’m using Page Builder,
   which is (if you are not familiar), a layout system with different boxes / modules
   to organize text and images on that page. It’s not like I am just changing colors
   and a theme and making a switch, it’s more complicated than that. It’ll take 
   time to convert each post with the new layout, one at a time, and I want this
   to be done somewhere not live so that when we do go live, it’s all set for the
   public.
 * I may have to do as you suggested in the backup method. Just exhausting my resources
   to make sure there’s not a simpler way.
 * Thanks!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Importing posts with same permalinks…’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [goodwinj](https://wordpress.org/support/users/goodwinj/)
 * Last activity: [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/importing-posts-with-same-permalinks/#post-5689729)
 * Status: not resolved

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