Do I need to alter the guid column in my import?

  • I’m changing over from one product catalog plugin to another and I’m planning to export the old listings as CSV, change the post type to the new one, and then re-import them. When I did the export, I see that the ‘guid’ values are the same URL for all of the posts. Normally a guid is unique, but these are all the same. That leads me to believe that the guid isn’t really being used at all, but I wondered if I ought to change the data in that column before doing my import for any reason. Suggestions?

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Thread Starter arothmanmusic

    (@arothmanmusic)

    Side question – if I set the ID column for the imported rows to numbers I know don’t exist yet, will WordPress skip over those numbers when generating new posts later on? i.e. if I start my IDs at 2000, when WP gets to post ID 1999 will it check to see if 2000 already exists before using that number for the next entry?

    Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    When I change a site’s domain, I change the GUID values. It does not seem to break anything. YMMV, of course.

    Thread Starter arothmanmusic

    (@arothmanmusic)

    Thanks Steve! Any thoughts on the IDs? If I manually set new IDs on the data, will WP be smart enough to skip over them when it reaches that number?

    Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    I don’t touch IDs; only change https://oldsite to https://newsite wherever it occurs using better-search-and-replace

    Thread Starter arothmanmusic

    (@arothmanmusic)

    Hmmm… ok, I’ll do some more research. I am concerned that if I import new posts with the same IDs as old ones it’ll screw things up, but if I set IDs by hand I’m not sure what WP does.

    Thanks for the response!

    Thread Starter arothmanmusic

    (@arothmanmusic)

    Now that I look at it, I think I’m going about this all the wrong way. I should be able to use the built-in Import / Export tools and just manipulate the XML rather than doing this all directly in the SQL database. I assume WP is smart enough to handle the IDs and Guids when importing its own content.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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