(Updated 3/29/17 4:22 PM)
We are excited to announce the WP-EZ Migration Tool is now available and can be used to copy Gold and free NE1 websites into our new WP-EZ Website Builder!
You may have some questions about migrating websites from NE1 to WP-EZ, so we’ve created this Frequently Asked Questions post to answer your questions.
Q) What is this WP-EZ Website Builder you speak of?
It’s WordPress made easy. We’re pretty excited about it! Read more about the WP-EZ Website Builder here.
Q) How does the migration from NE1 to the WP-EZ Website Builder work?
The migration is a simple 3-step process:
- Migrate. Login to your MyOCC Dashboard, click the “My Websites” option in the left menu, then click the “Migrate to WP-EZ” link to the right of your website address. You will select a theme for your WP-EZ website (which you can change any time you like). Then the migration tool will copy your menu, all of your pages, all of your media and most of modules/plugins from your NE1 website into WP-EZ. Visitors to your website will continue to see your NE1 website.
- Tweak. Edit your WP-EZ to get it looking the way you want it. During this step you will also need to setup the parts of your website that can’t be copied over to WP-EZ automatically. Visitors will continue to see your NE1 site while you tweak your WP-EZ website.
- Activate. When you’re ready to make your WP-EZ website live, login to your MyOCC Dashboard, click the “My Websites” option in the left menu, then click the “Activate WP-EZ” link. This will disable your NE1 website and set up redirects from the NE1 URLs to the WP-EZ URLs of your web pages. When visitors go to your website, they will now see your WP-EZ website.
Q) What parts of my NE1 website will not be automatically copied over to WP-EZ?
We have done everything we can to make the transition from NE1 to WP-EZ as simple as possible. Unfortunately, not everything can be copied over automatically. These are the aspects of NE1 websites that cannot be automatically copied:
- Template/theme. WP-EZ themes are different (and better) than NE1 templates. They are responsive (adjust to the size of the screen) and mobile friendly. So, you’ll have to select a new theme when you migrate to WP-EZ. And keeping with modern web design practices, each website will use one theme throughout rather than having the option to use a different theme on each page.
- Guestbook. We are discontinuing guestbooks. They are an outdated website feature.
- Free Prayer. While we would be happy to pray with you anytime no charge, we are no longer offering the prayer request module/plugin with free sites because of the potential for spam and email integration issues. The WP-EZ prayer plugin is available in Gold, Silver and Bronze sites.
- Calendar, PayPal shopping cart, gallery, poll. These features are available in WP-EZ but the data structure is so different that the migration tool cannot copy the NE1 data to WP-EZ. You can recreate them in WP-EZ. (Note that not all features are included in every hosting package. You can see which features are in each package here.)
- Some embedded audio/video. See below.
- Some HTML. (Added 6/2) If you used the “Paste HTML” features in NE1 to embed a block of HTML code into a page, the migration tool does not copy those HTML blocks into WP-EZ. We are close to completing an upgrade to the migration tool that will do this.
When you migrate your website, the migration tool will tell you which parts of your NE1 site you need to manually recreate and send you this info in an email as well.
Q) How does the migration tool handle audio and video? (added 4/29)
All audio and video files will be copied into the WP-EZ media library. They way they are displayed on WP-EZ pages, may differ.
If you uploaded and embedded mp3 audio files or mp4 video files into your NE1, the migration tool will translate the embed code so they play properly in WP-EZ. You should check pages with mp3 and mp4 files on them and may want to tweak the height, width and other settings.
If you uploaded and embedded other types of audio and video files like .wma, .mwv and .mov files, they will not play in WP-EZ. Note that even in NE1, many of your visitors could not listen to/view these file formats because they require a browser plugin. We strongly recommend you convert all audio and video files to mp3/mp4, then edit the WP-EZ page in which you wish to display them, click the “Media” button and upload/embed them.
If you embedded audio/video from an outside source (e.g. YouTube) using HTML embed code, this should work in WP-EZ just as it did in NE1 because the HTML will be copied into WP-EZ exactly as it was in NE1.
Q) When can I migrate my website? (updated 5/18)
Now. As of May 11, 2016, the migration tool is available to all NE1 sites (Gold, Silver, Bronze & Free).
Q) Why do free sites get to migrate first? (removed 5/18, not important since all sites can migrate now)
Q) Do I have to migrate my NE1 website to WP-EZ? (updated 1/11/17)
Eventually, yes. For security reasons we had to upgrade software on the server where free sites are hosted. NE1 is not compatible with this upgrade, so we had a deadline for free sites to migrate by May 19, then we moved all unmigrated free NE1 sites to WP-EZ on May 26.
For Gold, Silver and Bronze accounts, migration to WP-EZ is voluntary. Note that we cannot update the NE1 software so we cannot fix software-related problems. Over time we anticipate issues with NE1 will develop which we cannot fix, and eventually we will have to shut it down.
(Added 1/11/17) On November 19, 12 NE1 sites were hacked. Since then several others have been hacked. Because of the risk of more hacking and additional time our staff is having to spend restoring sites and removing malware, we announced starting in March is a $5/mo NE1 Usage Fee.
We strongly encourage everyone still using NE1 to migrate as soon as possible to prevent their site from being hacked and avoid the fee.
Q) Will my WP-EZ website have the same web address as my NE1 website?
For free sites, the web address of the homepage will change from something like https://www.ourchurch.com/member/m/mysite/ to http://freesites.ourchurch.com/m/mysite/ After the WP-EZ website has been activated, a visitor who goes to the URL of one of the pages in your old NE1 site will be redirected to the homepage of the new WP-EZ website. (Note, it may take up to an hour after the “Activate” link is clicked before the NE1 URLs redirect to the WP-EZ URL)
For Gold, Silver and Bronze sites, the web address of the homepage will not change. It will continue to be your domain name. The web addresses of the other pages of your website will change slightly, and when WP-EZ is activated, the URL of each page of the NE1 site will automatically redirect to the corresponding page of the WP-EZ website.
Q) Can you show me how to migrate my site?
Sure, watch this video to see a free NE1 website migrated into WP-EZ.
Q) The WP-EZ Website Builder sounds great but I’m not using NE1! Can I build a new site with it?
Absolutely! If you want to build a brand new website with WP-EZ, click the link and select your hosting package..
Q) What if I have questions about WP-EZ or the migration process?
We have online video tutorials to help you with every aspect of WP-EZ. If you have questions you can call us (727-723-2454), email us (support at ourchurch dot com), or create a help desk ticket.
62 Comments
Sorry but I'm really upset… I've had my OCC site since 2002 and spent years building a beautiful and perfectly customized site. I had over 2000 views a month for years. Hundreds if not thousands came to know Jesus as Savior and Lord through my site. Now with the WorpPress site software and the conversion, its all but a mess with broken page links, 404's, inaccessible or non existent features, deleted multi-media, themes that just don't work with my code and my freesites.ourchurch.com/h/hharvest_time site is basically useless. I've lost all my regular visitors and my online ministry is all but dead. I just don't think any OCC member including myself appreciates what you've done to OCC. I've tried to see if I can save my site, but to no avail. It will be impossible to rebuild. Even if it could be saved it would take over 1000 hours and tremendous aggravation. As a Christian organization who was suppose to support and encourage churches and individuals in their ministries, you have single-handedly destroyed decades of effort in evangelism. I am sorely disappointed with OCC and will probably have to close down the site and ask for my money back from my last billing. You basically sold out to a non-christian software program that only caterers to worldly commercialism. Thanks Paul!
Hi John, I'm sorry that the migration from NE1 to WP-EZ has been difficult for you and your new site is not what you had hoped. I assure you that we are as committed as ever to our mission of helping Christians live out their mission online. I'm going to create a help desk ticket from this comment so that our support team can respond and help you with the specific challenges facing you and your website.
I thought there was a comment somewhere about changing your administrator login information, but I can't find it anywhere so I'll post my question again here. You had said to click the "admin" link in the upper right corner. However, when I click that link I get an error message: "You are not allowed to access this part of the site. Contact OurChurch.Com if you need Advance Support." Perhaps this doesn't work until the new WPEZ site goes live? Or is there a glitch? Thank you.
Sorry for the delay in responding. This was a bug and it’s now been corrected.
I think I followed your directions from the video regarding the migration, but I got this message when I tried to do it:
“There is an issue with your account password and may already be outdated, preventing your site from being migrated. A message has been sent to our support team. When we have resolved the issue, we will send you an email and will then be able to proceed with the migration.”
Can you please advise? Thanks!
Hi Pastor Dan, sorry for the inconvenience. To install WP-EZ and migrate your site, the migration tool has to access your hosting account. The password we have in our records for your hosting account didn’t work. You probably changed it since your account was created or we updated our records, which is fine – it happens all the time. So the migration tool sent an email to our support team. They will reset the password, update our records and then send you an email to let you know the issue has been resolved.