Today’s tutorial is for bloggers on the Blogger platform (as opposed to Wordpress or Tumblr, etc.). However, the advice is applicable across all blogging platforms.
Backing up your blog
Why I am writing this today
If you follow me on Twitter, you would have seen the following tweet:
I'm so pissed. Blogger deleted my design site. pic.twitter.com/pKYM1sXxgm
— Lisette (@LaLaLisetteBlog) May 28, 2013
The “deleted” blog was hidden. |
I then had to fill out one of those annoying Captcha form. Duh, I’m not a spammer, Google! |
How to safely back-up your Blogger blog.
If my experience didn’t scare the Jeebus out of you, I don’t know what will. Whether you are looking to transfer your blog to a different platform or just save it in case Blogger deems it to be spam (I did not get ANY warning before it happened!) here’s how to do it.
1. Login to Blogger. Go to Settings > Other. Click on Export blog.
2. Select “Download blog.”
3. Save the XML file in a safe place. Back-up this back-up on a USB disk or an online storage site like Dropbox. (Dropbox is totally free, and you can set it up so that it syncs with a folder on your desktop. Genius.) Use my Dropbox referral link and they’ll give you an extra 500MB of storage for free, no strings attached.
4. Do this on the regular. I try to do it once a month, but after this scare I will probably do it on a weekly basis until I make the move to Wordpress.org. I’m not kidding.
That’s it. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to e-mail me!
Samm says
YAY! I’m so glad you posted this :)
Thanks girl!
Samm
http://www.dysfunctionaleverafter.com
Ashley Barnhill says
You are a life saver! I needed this! Backing mine up right now! THANK YOU! :)
And side note, I also started on WordPress (but the .org version) and switched to blogger after a couple months. I really struggled connecting with other bloggers on WordPress (I’m sure part of it was because I was clueless ha).
Michael says
I do this about once a month. Back in… I don’t even remember, I posted about it though.. Anyway, several months ago Blogger deleted my blog. Poof. Gone. No warning, no explanation. I was pissed and devastated. A year’s worth of writing, gone. I e-mailed, I tweeted, I basically spammed Google until they restored it. And from then on I back up, just in case. My blog is clearly not spam so there’s zero reason for it. If it’s a dormant blog, ok, I get it, but I’m on it at elast once a day.
Shane Prather says
Hmmm I never knew you could do this! Thanks for enlightening us all, headed to do it now :)
Alyssa says
Eeeeeeep I need to do this… writing it in my calendar to do it as soon as I get home!!!!
Megalin says
Backing up right now!
Treasure Tromp says
whoa, that is ridiculous! so glad that you were able to restore your site.
As a side note, I’ve been using Bluehost for almost 2 years and love it!
Amber says
Eeeek, your story makes me nervous. I have got to do this! Thanks for the heads up!
Aleshea says
I’ve heard these crazy stories on random forums but never from a person I follow. I’ll have to start backing my content up.
Gwen says
Thanks for this post! Glad you got it back. I love their line “don’t worry, your blog will still remain on Blogger until you delete it.” Um, apparently not.
Kay says
Whatttt?! How crazy! I’m glad you posted about this though because now I’m going to start backing up my blog regularly! Especially since I haven’t backed up a thing since I first started! So Thank You!!
Rachel says
Ugh, still can’t believe they deleted your site. Glad they restored it.
Cece says
I heard about this happening to another blogger and she went over to wordpress with her own domain. How awful!!! I’d have freaked out big time. I don’t see myself getting my own domain because I really don’t want to pay and the free wordpress is so restricting like you said so I don’t like that either. I probably should start doing back ups too. I can never remember! I haven’t backed up my i phone in forever.
Jana says
I’m so glad you posted this. I can’t believe your site got deleted. So scary. I’m glad it got put back up though! Sorry that happened to you. Yikes! I’m going to back my stuff up right now!
Jeanine Tribley says
I must say, I live in fear that this will happen to me. I have been backing up my Blog and I usually do this once per week. Always enjoy your blog and sorry you had to go through this!
Thanks for the post!!
Dara @ The Southern Thing says
very helpful! thanks!
jackie jade says
ahhhh thanks for sharing – just saved mine!
— jackie – jade and oak
— jewelry giveaway
The Domestic Geek says
Go Daddy has pretty terrible customer service if you ever run into issues. I would definitely opt for BlueHost!
Shelley says
I got my domain name from Go Daddy but does that mean they back it up? I just did this though just in case. Thanks!
Karrie Smith says
Hmm… I wonder what a Spam Blog is? I’m glad that you got your blog back :) I like the design!
Cody Doll says
Wow. I didn’t even know that could happen. I am sooo going to be backing up my blog now. Thanks for the info.
PS I have heard horrible things about GoDaddy but if you have TONS of traffics, it one of the only ones that you can host with.
Lisette says
Really? I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with Go Daddy. They even helped me fix a ROYAL f*** up on my end.
Cody Doll says
Wow. All I have heard it bad things. People being dropped. People’s blog being blocked because of “spam”, even though it was Go Daddy’s.
Amberly says
Done and done! :) That was a lot easier than I thought it would be!
Rachel G says
I’ve never done this, but I definitely need to! It’s on my to-do list for this week!
Tiffanie Turner says
Hi there! Thanks for posting this. I am having a problem….after I click on “export blog” I don’t get an option to save as an .xml file. It’s really frustrating. It just takes a minute to turn everything into an archive link like this: (feed://www.blogger.com/feeds/xxxxxxxxxxx/archive)
But no further option for saving.
I’m really needing to back my blog up. Could you help me with this? Thank you in advance!
Lisette says
Email me and I’ll try to help you!
Tiffanie Turner says
I figured it out, thank you Lisette!
Tracey says
I have the same problem! Help!
Tiffanie Turner says
Tracey, I was able to do it in Firefox instead of my usual Safari. Maybe try switching to Firefox and Chrome, it might do the trick!
Lisette says
I only use Chrome on my laptop, so I haven’t tested it in either Safari or Firefox. Tracey e-mailed me saying that using Chrome worked. Thanks ladies!
Tracey says
Yep, Chrome is the trick! Thanks for responding, Tiffanie. And thanks for the post, Lisette.
Morgan says
Thank you so much for posting this. I have a few blogs with blogger, and I recently was wishing to combine them all into one, but didn’t want to loose my posts or comments! And thanks to you, I was able to do so! Thanks a bunch!
Emma says
You are very lucky. They have deleted about 6 of my blogs this year with at least 500 visitors each per day. Message them and did all sort of things but could not restore them. Am thinking of moving to wordpress with at least 3 blogs. Please how do I get genesis frame work theme? Can I buy it once and use it on all my blogs?
Lisette says
Oh no!! So sorry to hear that! Did you try posting to that forum I linked to?
Yes you can install Genesis to all of your sites.
I also offer Blogger to WordPress migrations. Email me for more info.
tam says
Thank you! Very helpful!
Mira says
Oh, Lisette! Thanks so much for posting this! I never knew I could back up my blog! :D
I really did your blog interesting! Will be looking forward to your posts from here on! Cheers! Enjoy your weekend!
Lisette says
Yes! You can! No problem! It’s something that I need to remind myself to do as well.
debiparna says
I did this once and then forgot all about it. Yesterday I saw my google page rank has disappeared. Today I saw the GFC widget (where I have most of my followers) is not showing up (as is happening to a few other bloggers I know). I am so frustrated with blogger right now! ugh!
Lisette says
GFC is disappearing? I’m honestly not surprised. Google has been pushing Google+ for a while now, so it makes sense that they would no longer support GFC. It’s still sad!
Definitely back-up your posts! You can never trust Google!
Kelly says
I just did this – so glad I did it before I HAD to! Thank you!
Natalie Box ~ The Writer's Ink says
Thank you so much for this!! Very helpful advice… I am so sorry you had to learn this the hard way!
Thank you again so much :) Bless you!
Nat xx
The Writer’s Ink :)