Siteground, WordPress & Me: A Blog Migration Story That Didn’t End Well

What Went Wrong With My WordPress Blog Setup (And Why I Went Back to Blogger)

When I decided to upgrade my blog to a shiny new WordPress site, I expected a bit of a learning curve — but not a full-blown disaster. What was supposed to be a simple migration from Blogger turned into a frustrating mess of DNS issues, vanished menus, broken templates, and a lot of wasted time.

In this post, I’ll share exactly what went wrong with no fluff, how it snowballed into a full retreat, and why I’m back on Blogger for now. If you’re thinking of switching platforms, this might save you a few headaches.

Be sure to read my post Is Amazon Prime Worth it? after you finish here! Plain speak only!

A young man sits at his desk with his hands on his head, looking frustrated at a computer screen displaying a 500 Internal Server Error during a failed WordPress setup.

This is a post I didn’t plan to write, but felt was worth sharing. If you’re considering switching from Blogger to WordPress, especially under pressure, I hope this helps you avoid some of the mistakes I made.

Why I Wanted to Move to WordPress

I had recently started blogging on Blogger and found it very easy to use — almost too easy. But it didn’t take long to hit some serious limitations, especially when using the default Blogspot domain.

I wanted more control over the design, better SEO tools, and cleaner, more professional-looking templates. Blogger just wasn’t cutting it. After a good bit of research, SiteGround came out on top. They offered a discounted first year and a full WordPress website setup. I was sold.

My expectation was a relatively straightforward setup: install a theme, tweak a few settings, and I’d be up and running. I was used to Wix (drag and drop) and Blogger (basically childproof, in my opinion). How hard could WordPress be?

The reality was far from what I’d imagined. I didn’t expect to spend hours wrestling with templates that wouldn’t load properly or menus that simply refused to appear. I assumed things like header links and page navigation would be built in or at least easy to set up — but that wasn’t the case at all.

Pointing My Domain (and the First Mistake)

After signing up with SiteGround, I made my first mistake: I selected the option that said I already had my own domain. At the time, I didn’t think it mattered — but it absolutely did.

That choice immediately tied my new WordPress install to my existing domain, which meant I couldn’t quietly build the site in the background while waiting for the domain to propagate. I had assumed I’d be able to work on the new site offline or in a staging area. I was wrong.

What that meant in practice was this: I couldn’t edit or preview the new site until the domain was fully pointing to it. Once that happened, my Blogger blog would revert back to its old Blogspot address — and every link I’d already shared would break. I was suddenly in a mad rush to finish and launch a working WordPress site just to avoid having a dead link floating around the internet.

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Template Trouble – Nothing Worked as It Should

I started with the Astra theme, but every template I tried had issues. Titles and text were misaligned, images didn’t download, and menus were either missing or broken. Each time I reset, things only got worse. I didn’t even have access to placeholder images to make a temporary layout look halfway decent. I wiped everything and started fresh — but the same problems kept coming back.

Next, I tried Neve’s starter templates. They looked promising at first, and I managed to get one to load properly. But nothing was customizable. The links weren’t editable, and there was no drag-and-drop functionality like I was used to on Wix. After hours of fiddling, I was still nowhere. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the site to a point where I felt satisfied.

I tested both Gutenberg and Elementor as page builders, and even gave the AI builder a shot — but most of the templates that actually looked decent turned out to be Premium-only. That sent me back to square one again.

In hindsight, I probably should’ve contacted support. But at the time, I didn’t want to wait around for replies — I needed working results, fast.

What Made Me Finally Give Up

I was spending more and more time without making any real progress. As a last attempt, I decided to go backwards and try one of the default themes — Twenty Four. It loaded more cleanly than the others, but once again, there was no visible menu. Why wasn’t something as basic as a menu intuitive in any of these templates?

The learning curve had officially beaten me. I was working under pressure with a time-sensitive deadline, and the simplest tasks — like spacing out a menu across the top of the page — felt impossible. It’s something I could do in seconds on Wix, but in WordPress, I was drowning in settings and guessing my way through menus. That was the final straw.

I decided to pull the plug. I updated the DNS settings to point my domain back to Blogger. The catch? It didn’t work immediately — my domain was now pointing nowhere, and Blogger had reverted to the old Blogspot address.

To be honest, the whole experience is a bit of a blur now. I followed every fix and workaround I could find on Google. If you’re thinking “you should’ve just done X” — chances are, I did. I tried every route I could, but it just kept looping back into problems.

What Went Wrong (In Short):

I chose the wrong domain option too early
Templates were broken or missing menus
No drag-and-drop option like Wix or Blogger
Too many settings hidden in menus or missing
No Tooltips to follow
No time to learn under pressure, so I bailed

What I’d Do Differently Next Time

This whole experience was frustrating — but I definitely learned from it. Some of the problems were my own doing, but others were unexpected technical issues with no obvious solution and no clear support path.

If you’re considering a similar move, here’s what I’d recommend:

Wait for full domain propagation first
Only try one theme at a time
Use a staging site or subdomain
Possibly get outside help for setup if repeating

Final Thoughts – It Wasn’t Just SiteGround

I know plenty of people around the world use SiteGround and WordPress successfully — so maybe it really was just me, on the day, under pressure. I leapt before I looked and didn’t do enough research beforehand. I was sold on the idea of a perfectly functioning website without doing the legwork to get there.

The problem wasn’t one big thing — it was a chain reaction of small missteps and unexpected setup hurdles. Maybe I’ll return to WordPress one day, just so I don’t feel like I gave up. Who knows? But for now, I’m keeping things simple and sticking with Blogger.

In the end, it was actually a relief to go back to something easy and familiar. If you’ve had similar struggles with a platform switch, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Thanks for reading,

David

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