When was the last time you backed up your blog?
On Tuesday, I heard from a few bloggers that their blogs had been deleted. They were using Blogger to host their blogs. It seems that Google is targeting a particular set of blogs with this latest round - those with the Adult Content Warning or having adult ads on their sites. Apparently a letter was sent to blogs that would potentially be affected by this update.
However, this isn't the only time blogs have disappeared. And it can happen to anyone at any time. Those using a free hosting service are most vulnerable though. At anytime the service can be discontinued.
A blog can be deleted by the host for violating TOS. Google has been cracking down on black hat techniques of linking and traffic building. (You may have heard of the Penguin and Panda updates). Having too much duplicate content (content that is identically posted on multiple blogs) can adversely effect your ranking, but it can also having you running afoul of Google's spammer detecting algorithms.
Blogger isn't the only platform susceptible to deleting blogs. You can run into this problem with any free hosting service, including the free Wordpress.com.
It is IMPORTANT that you back up your blog so you will have a copy to easily reload should your blog be deleted by your host. If you post only a few times a week, a monthly back up should suffice. If you post multiple times a day, you may wish to back up weekly or biweekly.
How do you back up your blog?
It is easy with Blogger to make a back up copy of your blog to store on your hard drive, disk, or cloud. Simply go to Setting > Other > Export Blog.
I'm sure it is similarly easy with Wordpress and I would be most appreciative if one of my Wordpress bloggers would post the instructions in the comments. Thanks!
Remember: Save your Sanity! Save your Blog! Back up TODAY!
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For a Wordpress blog, one can
ReplyDelete1) click Tools in left navbar
2) click Export in expanded list
3) choose the type (all, posts, pages, feedback)
4) click Download Export File.
This downloads an XML file with what was selected in step 3. It can then be used by the import process to restore.
Thanks for providing these instructions.
DeleteSure! It is a topic near and dear to me. :)
DeleteThanks to both of you. Whew!
DeleteAs an aside, ifttt.com is a pretty cool site which takes an action based on a condition. One recipe I use is to look at my Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric RSS feed. New posts there trigger the creation of the same post at Ezra S F which acts as a live backup. Of course, this only affects things publicly published, so drafts and private posts are not copied.
ReplyDeleteWow, I had NO IDEA this could even happen! Thanks; I've just backed mine up.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip, Donna. I went ahead and backed mine up just in case.
ReplyDeleteI'm bad about remember to back up. I really should put it on my calendar because I would be devastated if the 800+ posts got deleted.
DeleteExcellent article Donna, I've bookmarked it and will link to it on my blog :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing my post.
DeleteThanks for the tip. I just backed up my blog. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you! I was just thinking I needed to do this. You've saved me from muddling my way through trying to figure this out. ;)
ReplyDelete