Backup Your Blog

How many of you backup your own blog? Do you trust your server hosting company to do a good job? As I do not pay a significant amount of money for my host server, some of the things I have to do on my own. My host server management is actually doing a great job, they have proper backup process in place.

A word of warning to you, especially for those who are earning from PPP or whatever advertising program, backup your blog. You may not know when a hacker will strike or a server crash. It happens as hardware is not 100% reliable. If all your postings are gone, those unpaid sponsored post will be gone.

I am running my blog on a very old version. I kind of like the old version interface and got used to it for so many years. The new version sometimes gives me a headache. With this old version, there isn’t any export function. On top of that, it is an old version, so installation of the old version may not be available in the even I need a recovery.

Anyway, I found an excellent plugin (wp-xmlmigrate plugin) to export it to XML file from http://technosailor.com/wordpress-to-wordpress-import/ . For those running on WP 2.x and above, there should be an export function. You can export your entire blog to XML file and store it in your PC periodically. On top of that, I also backup my blog database. I believed the XML restoration will be faster than restoring the database.

I did a lot of searching before I found this plugin, there were many other plugins that I installed which didn’t work. One that I downloaded, mess up my entire blog. Imagine, my entire blog gone, yes a total blank page. If you were me, you will freak out. Fortunately I had backup and restore it. It works, phew. Backup is very important, so put some thoughts into it.

Oh, for those who do not know what I am saying because it is too technical, check with your hosting server company and ask them about their backup process. I think they can help you.