Last week I reviewed the elements of archiving through the MyTripJournal system. This week I’ll review how to back up blog content with 3 of the web’s most popular blogging sites: Blogger, Typepad and WordPress. For the most part, these backups are free, but they are very different from the interactive and comprehensive backup and archive available to premium subscribers to the MyTripJournal system.
Backups from Blogger
Unlike MyTripJournal, the Blogger system does not include a direct export or download function. However you can generate a single file with all your posts that can then be published and copied to your PC. If you aren’t finished with the blog at the time you create the backup, make sure you save the template so it can be reused in this process again.
For complete instructions on how to create this backup file, click here.
Backups from TypePad
The TypePad system does include an Export tool that allows users to download their blog posts. However this backup is a plain-text file and doesn’t backup any of the account’s templates or files. At present, there is no way to backup Basic templates. Users with Advanced Templates can copy and paste their existing templates into text files to save them.
There is no way to back up Photo Albums on TypePad either. To create a backup, you will need to save each webpage of your site as ‘web page complete’. Typepad recommends keeping an archive of your photos in another location for safe keeping.
You can find backup instructions for TypePad here.
Backups from WordPress
To back up your WordPress content, you will need to back up both the files and the database. Backing up the site files is quite easy, but backing up the database is a fairly lengthy process using a database utility. Most website hosts will provide this utility for you free of charge and typically one called phpMyAdmin which is a web-based MySQL database administration tool is offered. The database backups can also be quite large, but one perk is you can automate the backup process.
 |
| Exporting Your WordPress Database |
For instructions on backing up your WordPress content, please take a look at the following link.
Dan Parlow
<Personal Travel Websites by RV.Net ; Online Travel Journals by MyTripJournal.com ; Explore Good Sam Club Trip Journals ; Woodalls Trip Journals ; Travel Journals by Trailer Life Directory ; Traveling USA Travel Blogs
Chris Guld
Regarding the backup instructions for Blogger … a couple of things people should know:
1. those instructions (in Blogger help) require you to edit the CSS code for your template. This is not for the faint of heart – and it doesn’t always work.
2. if you succeed in following those instructions, the end result will not include your photo files – just the html code that link to the files wherever they exist on the web.
The only way I know of getting everything is by using the ‘Save As: Web Page Complete’ – like you suggest for typepad. I show how to do this on ‘Backup Your Blog’ on my page of Blogger tutorials at http://geeksontour.com/blogger.cfm
I love Blogger – been using it for 5 years, but the lack of a good backup feature is a major failing in my opinion. I don’t see why it should be that hard – they have all the posts in a database, why can’t we simply download an xml file?
It looks like a 3d party product does the trick: http://www.blogbackuponline.com. For $50/year they say it will backup your images as well as the text, and have the ability to restore your blog. I haven’t used it myself, so I can’t verify.