Reminder: Backup your blog with Blogger's Export function

Because Blogger.com is free, spammers have abused it thus forcing Blogger to use robotic programs to detect and delete splogs (spam blogs) as well as violation of Blogger's Terms of Service (TOS), but unfortunately the possibility of false positive (legitimate blogs wrongly identified as splog) is ever present. Every now and then we get plea for help and this recent one is typical:

"I had put a lot of time and effort into this blog over the years to have it just taken away. If I cannot get it restored, is there a way to at least get my content? I am just heartbroken over this."

Now Blogger has set up some procedure for such unfortunate occurrence as described in How to recover blog deleted as splog or TOS violation, it is best to take a bit of time to backup your blog using Blogger's export function. By doing so, you would not only be saving the blog posts for any eventuality, but also the comments.

How to backup and restore blog with EXPORT

There have been frequent incidences of bloggers accidentally deleting their blogs or having Blogger deleted their blogs, etc., so it is good practice to backup your blog so that you can restore it when such calamities happened. Previously we had to use Blog Collector to backup blog. However, Blog Collector had its limitations plus restoring the blog is tedious. Furthermore, Blog Collector only backup text, it does not backup links, embedded content like videos or music players, comments and photos. (note: uploaded photos are hosted at Picassa Web Album, so if your Picassa Web Album account is deleted, those photos will be lost)

Now that Blogger had introduced import blog and export blog, backing up and restoring your blog is very easy. Furthermore, links, embedded content, comments and photos is also easily backed up and restored with just a couple of clicks.

To backup your blog, sign into Blogger Dashboard, go to Settings > Basic and you will see 3 links: import blog, export blog, delete blog.



Click export blog and Bloger will create an xml file for you to save into your computer. You would be well advised to save the xml file with a suitable file name and/or in a folder which will enable you to not only easily locate it when needed, but also to distinguish it from a backup template xml file because both are xml files and both will have identical icon

If something drastic happened to your blog, you can similarly go to SETTINGS > BASIC, but this time click import blog, click BROWSE and browse to your exported xml file, complete the captcha (word verification), select whether to automatically publish all imported posts or not, then just click Import blog.

Now a note on the option to automatically publish all imported posts and the possibility of triggering Blogger's bot to mark the imported blog as a spam blog. If you are worried, then you should not tick the box for all imported posts to be published automatically. You will then get a list of imported posts, after which you can publish the posts in batches by ticking some posts and then clicking PUBLISH:



I have tested importing and simultaneously 400+ posts and the test blog was not marked as a spam blog. However, I do not know if you do that you will be as lucky as before I import and publish so many posts simultaneously, I added a noindex meta tag to the template.

This import export features can also be used to export your Blogger blog to other blogging platform like Wordpress, Live Journal, etc., or to import blogs from Wordpress, etc., into your Blogger blog.

Stuff for bloggers

Backing up your blog Part III

I have written about backing up your blog and have mentioned about using BlogCollector, unfortunately, I have tested BlogCollector on a blog using the New Blogger template, and it didn't work. So what is left now is:

1. to set your blog to send an email to a specially created email address to collect posts (unfortunately, this will not include the HTML that would display images, etc and also if it is an old blog, and you want the old post to be backed up, you will have to do it manually one by one)

2. Manual method. Open each post in the EDIT HTML mode, copy and paste the content into Notepad and save it somewhere safe and easily accessible.

3. Use HTTrack. I have tested using HTTrack and as I expected, it works for both blogs using old classic templates and New Blogger templates. I expected it to work because it mirrors Webpages which does not depend on how the Webpage was created. If you use HTTrack to backup your blog, you can even burn the mirrored site onto a CD and send it to other to view, etc.

Backing up your blog Part II

I have previously published a post How to backup your blog in which BlogCollector and HTTrack was mentioned as one of many methods to backup your blog. Recently, someone asked a question about BlogCollector, saying he couldn't get BlogCollector to work. Since I haven't used BlogCollector after New Blogger templates was introduced, I decided to make some tests.

I used BlogCollector to try to backup Testing Blogger Beta which is a blog using a New Blogger template in a New Blogger account. BlogCollector failed to backup this blog.

I tried BlogCollector on Blogger for Dummies which is also in a New Blogger account, but still using the old classic template. The backup was successful, backing up all the 60 posts in the blog.

So the conclusion is that you can use BlogCollector for blogs using the old classic Blogger template, but not for the New Blogger template. For that, you will have to use HTTrack or other methods.

Update 9 August 2007: This update should have been updated earlier, but BlogCollector has already been updated to backup New Blogger blogs. However, I haven't really have time to test it but I think it still can backup photos. The best way to backup blogs is to do the tedious manual method by editing each post in the EDIT HTML mode, save the content of the post in a Notepad file and save them one by one, but it is a lot of work.

Backing up the template, changing template, etc.

Backing up the Blogger template

It is important to always backup the template, especially if you do a lot of customization. To backup the template, sign into Dashboard, select the blog, click the TEMPLATE tab, and highlight all the text in the template editor (ctrl+A). Right-click on the mouse and select copy. Click the START button at the bottom left of the page, scroll to PROGRAMS > ACCESSORIES > NOTEPAD and click on NOTEPAD to open it. Then paste it into Notepad (right-click+paste) and save it under a suitable file name, for example blognameDate, preferably in a folder specially for template backups.

Changing to a new template

After you have pasted the current template into Notepad and saved, under the TEMPLATE tab, click PICK NEW and select a new template.On the other hand, if you are changing to a non-standard Blogger template (downloaded from website elsewhere), the in the above step, instead of right-clicking on the mouse and select copy, select cut instead, then in another tab or window where you have the new template, copy the new template, go back to the Blogger post editor, right-click inside the now blank post editor window and select paste. Click PREVIEW and if you are satisfied, click PUBLISH.

Books from Amazon

The Rational Guide to Google Blogger (Technical accuracy is assured by Biz Stone, Former Senior Specialist on the Google Blogger Team)

The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog

NEWER POST

OLDER POST