SharePoint: Move Site Collection as a Subsite

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Environment

SharePoint 2007/2010/2013

Requirement

To move a site collection as a subsite to another site collection, we can make use of STSADM or PowerShell import/export command.

Following are the steps to achieve this.

Assume that we need to move the site collection http://sitecollection1/sites/asite to another site collection http://sitecollection2/sites/bsite as a subsite.

Steps

Export the site collection

Export the site collection (http://sitecollection1/sites/asite) using STSADM command line tool.

using stsadm command

stsadm.exe -o export -url http://sitecollection1/sites/asite -filename c:\backups\sc_asite.bak –includeusersecurity –nofilecompression

using PowerShell command

Export-SPWeb -Identity http://sitecollection1/sites/asite -Path C:\backups\sc_asite.bak -IncludeUserSecurity -NoFileCompression

Create a new site with Blank Site template

 Create a new site with Blank Site template in the other site collection (http://sitecollection2/sites/bsite). Assume the blank site name is csite.

Import the backed up site

Import the backed up site collection in c:\mybckup\sc_asite.bak

using stsadm command

stsadm.exe -o import -url http://sitecollection2/sites/bsite/csite -filename c:\backups\sc_asite.bak

-includeusersecurity -nofilecompression

using PowerShell command

Import-SPWeb http://sitecollection2/sites/bsite/csite  -Path c:\backups\sc_asite.bak -IncludeUserSecurity -NoFileCompression

After migration, the site collection 1 will be available under the following URL as a subsite: http://sitecollection2/sites/bsite/csite