SharePoint 2010 – How to move a subsite to a different location

1. Fire up the command line
2. CD \”Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN”
3. Export the old URL using the following Command:

stsadm -o export -url http://intranet/website -filename c:\test\backup.cmp

However, when I tried this under my domain and SharePoint administrator account, I got this error:

“The Web application at http://intranet/website could not be found. Verify that you have typed the URL
correctly.  If the URL should be serving existing content, the system administrator may need to add a
new request URL mapping to the intended application.“

After searching a bit on this, it seemed like the problem may have been a permissions issue.  So, I confirmed that the administrator account I used had SharePoint Farm Administrative rights, as well as site collection administrative rights.  I then tried to run this same command with a designated “SharePoint Administrator” account which also had SharePoint Farm Administrative rights and Site Collection Administrative rights, but then got an Access Denied error.

After spending some time adding and removing rights for both of those accounts to see if I could get this working, I table the issue and moved on to other tasks.  One of those tasks was to delete some old subsites from our SharePoint.  I ended up stumbling upon the Content and Structure link under Site Administration:

And to my surprise, I found that it is possible to select any site and copy or move it:

1. Select the parent site of the subsite you want to move in the left navigation pane
   
2. Check the box next to the subsite that you want to move in the right pane, click the Actions drop-down and clickMove…
   
3. Then select the destination of the subsite selected in the next dialog box

This method ended up being a lot more straight forward and quicker than the command line option.

I’m glad I found it!