Export / Import Requires Administrative Control Of Both Blogs

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, we see the naive query

How do I merge my two blogs, using Export / Import?

When given the simple advice

Use the "Export blog" and "Import blog" wizards, both in the dashboard Settings - Other menu.

the immediate response is

I don't have that menu item!

This person has, most likely, lost control of the Blogger account.

In order to avoid encouraging scraping of blog contents, both the Export and Import wizards are only available to blog administrators. Not everybody wishing to use "Export blog" has blog ownership, however.

Too many people, denied immediate recovery of control of their blog, just start another blog.

With a new blog, the first thing needed is the content from the old blog. This is not easily had, however - because both "Export blog" and "Import blog" are part of the Blogger dashboard - and can be accessed only by blog owners.

If anybody could use "Export blog", and export the comments and posts from any blog, "Export blog" would be a very popular wizard - to blog thieves. To encourage Export / Import to be used for legitimate purposes, Blogger made it part of the Blogger dashboard - where it is accessible only to blog administrators.

This does not provide a solution for people who have lost control of their Blogger accounts - and who naively figure to start a new blog, and move the contents of the old blog to the new blog. If you're in this situation, you have only two possibilities.

1. Recover comments and posts using blog feeds and online cache.
2. Cluster the new and old blogs - but asymmetrically.

You can link from the new blog back to the old blog, using any combination of imaginative techniques - but without control of the old Blogger account, you're simply not going to be able to link from the old blog to the new blog.

Sorry. Once again, you have to always retain control of your Blogger account.

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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.

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.

How you backup your blog depends upon several details.

• 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.

Before you plan how to backup your blog, you need to decide which of these features is most important to you, and what problem from which you wish to recover.

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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The Multiply Blogging Platform Is Ending

Recently, people who use the popular Multiply blogging platform were given bad news.

From December 1st, we will unfortunately no longer be able to support Multiply in its current form - notably we will be removing the social networking and content sharing part of Multiply (photos, videos, blogs, social messaging, etc.). We have decided to discontinue providing and hosting these services, as we have concluded that other Internet sites who are committed to social networking services will do a better job serving you than we can.

They are, right now, unsure what options they can offer, to help existing Multiply blogs be transitioned to alternatives such as Blogger.

We're still finalising the exact list of formats and platforms that we'll export to, but users will be able to download all their original media and data, (in some flexible formats) and also able to migrate directly to alternative blogging platforms.

So, let's see what options Blogger Engineering can offer. Watch this space, for updates.

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