Long ago, Blogger blog owners would publish a blog as part of an existing website. With the website published as "www.mydomain.com", they would create a website subdirectory "www.mydomain.com/myblog", and publish the blog there.
The option to publish a blog as "www.mydomain.com/myblog" required an externally maintained domain / website - and the Blogger feature "FTP Publishing". In 2010, Blogger, with many man hours spent fixing a constant stream of problems, retired "FTP Publishing", in favour of "Custom Domain Publishing".
Custom Domain Publishing, like FTP Publishing, lets us publish our Blogger blogs to non BlogSpot URLs. Unlike an FTP published blog, a custom domain published blog requires a separate subdomain for each different blog. If a non Blogger website is hosted as "www.mydomain.com", a Blogger blog can only be published to "blog.mydomain.com" - and "www.mydomain.com/blog" became an impossibility.
Last year, Blogger introduced Custom Redirects, as part of the "Search Preferences" feature. Now, once again, a Blogger blog can be addressed as "www.mydomain.com/myblog", when hosted as "www.mydomain.com" - though a non Blogger website (if one exists) cannot be directly hosted as "www.mydomain.com", simultaneously.
It may be possible, however, to host an externally published website as "site.mydomain.com", and a Blogger blog as "www.mydomain.com" - and use the Blogger "Missing Files Host" feature to locate website pages, dynamically, in "site.mydomain.com". There may be hope, for people who declined to migrate their FTP Published blogs, in 2009 - and who now have static "blogs" as frozen pages in their external websites.
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Showing posts with label Blog URL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog URL. Show all posts
Monday, 18 February 2013
Friday, 1 February 2013
How You Should Backup Your Blog Will Depend Upon How You Plan To Restore It
We see signs of naivete, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, from blog owners concerned with malware / spam deletions, and with other unexplained disasters in Blogger.
Not many concerned blog owners realise the first principle of backups, known by any experienced network administrator.
One of the simplest solutions for a backup, which some Blogger experts will suggest, is to use the Export / Import wizard, in Settings - Other.
Similarly, some experts may suggest backing up the template.
There are many components of a Blogger blog - not just the comments, posts, and template.
The accessories (decorations, gadgets) is one component of the blog which is most frequently missed, after a deleted blog is recreated / restored using a "comments / posts / template backup" restore strategy. Both graphic decorations, and XML based gadgets, may not be easily backed up, and may present a challenge when the blog is restored, or recreated.
XML gadgets, such as bloglists and linklists, may contain a lot of detail, which is installed into the blog one entry at a time - and there is no known way to automate a backup or restore of these gadgets.
Recovering the URL is one of the most subtle details, that may not always be considered by many blog owners. The URL is relevant in two ways. Most blogs which are important enough, for the owner to want to backup, have acquired reputation - both with people (readers, subscribers, and viewers), and with search engines.
Some blogs will link the various posts to each other - as I do with this blog. In either case, the recovered blog is not as useful, unless the URL is also recovered.
If the blog is deleted by Blogger - or by the owner - the URL may not be available, for blog recovery. When Blogger deletes a blog as a suspected abusive content host, the URL is locked to the blog. The only way to recover the URL is to have the blog reviewed, and restored to availability.
When a blog is deleted by the owner, the blog must be restored by the owner - within 90 days after deletion. In either case, a backup is useless.
If you have a personal blog, containing just posts (and maybe comments from known family or friends), backing up the comments and posts makes sense. For a publicly known blog, containing various accessories, and having a known URL, you'll want to plan your backup / restore strategy using a bit more effort.
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How do I backup my blog, to protect the contents against unfair spam deletions?
Not many concerned blog owners realise the first principle of backups, known by any experienced network administrator.
- Never plan a backup, without first planning the restore.
- What problem do you expect, to require a backup?
- How do you plan to recover, from a problem?
One of the simplest solutions for a backup, which some Blogger experts will suggest, is to use the Export / Import wizard, in Settings - Other.
- Before disaster strikes, Export your posts and comments.
- After disaster strikes, simply Import your posts and comments, from a convenient backup.
Similarly, some experts may suggest backing up the template.
- Before disaster strikes, use the dashboard Template "Backup / Restore" wizard, to backup the template.
- After disaster strikes, use the wizard to restore the template.
There are many components of a Blogger blog - not just the comments, posts, and template.
- Accessories.
- Comments.
- Decorations.
- Gadgets.
- Posts.
- Layout.
- URL.
The accessories (decorations, gadgets) is one component of the blog which is most frequently missed, after a deleted blog is recreated / restored using a "comments / posts / template backup" restore strategy. Both graphic decorations, and XML based gadgets, may not be easily backed up, and may present a challenge when the blog is restored, or recreated.
XML gadgets, such as bloglists and linklists, may contain a lot of detail, which is installed into the blog one entry at a time - and there is no known way to automate a backup or restore of these gadgets.
Recovering the URL is one of the most subtle details, that may not always be considered by many blog owners. The URL is relevant in two ways. Most blogs which are important enough, for the owner to want to backup, have acquired reputation - both with people (readers, subscribers, and viewers), and with search engines.
Some blogs will link the various posts to each other - as I do with this blog. In either case, the recovered blog is not as useful, unless the URL is also recovered.
If the blog is deleted by Blogger - or by the owner - the URL may not be available, for blog recovery. When Blogger deletes a blog as a suspected abusive content host, the URL is locked to the blog. The only way to recover the URL is to have the blog reviewed, and restored to availability.
When a blog is deleted by the owner, the blog must be restored by the owner - within 90 days after deletion. In either case, a backup is useless.
If you have a personal blog, containing just posts (and maybe comments from known family or friends), backing up the comments and posts makes sense. For a publicly known blog, containing various accessories, and having a known URL, you'll want to plan your backup / restore strategy using a bit more effort.
>> Top
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