Blog Publisher Tips: Keep Records and Backups of Blogs

I had a question about something that has happened on one of my blogs - the "search ribbon" at the top has disappeared and I can't figure out how to get it back - so I went to Blogger's help forums to ask about it.

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger?hl=en

Because I use blogger for all my blogs.

After asking my questions, I browsed around other people's questions, and came across someone frantically trying to figure out why their blog had been deleted without warning, without explanation.

This struck a chord with me, because I used to have a Google Adsense account. I'd had it for three or four years. And for three or four years I was gradually increasing my income, so that last year - when the events I'm relating happened - I was actually making some good money with Adsense and beginning to believe I could make a living online with my websites, because of it.

Then one day I tried to sign on to my account...couldn't do it. Without warning,my account had been terminated. I desperately tried to find out what had happened, and why, but never could do it. I never violated TOS, and I emailed them and told them so, but never got a response.

So that was four years of hard work down the toilet. That was my income, down the toilet! I was pretty depressed after that for several months, I can tell you.

Not to mention furious. I had not broken TOS. Even if I had broken TOS, they had my email. Why couldn't they email me, say, "You're doing this against TOS, clean it up or we'll have to suspend your account." Instead, nothing. No reason, no explanation, no appeal.

Well, after that rant let me get back to the purpose of this post.

Turns out, Blogger will do the same thing to your blog account. If they see something they don't like, they will suspend your account without warning! You have to submit a request to "review blog" and while you're waiting for them to review it, if they ever do, your blog is down.

Of course for most people that's not a concern - we dont break TOS, we follow the rules... but if my experience with AdSense is any judge - sometimes that just doesn't help you.

So, my advice is that if you use blogger, or indeed, any free blogging software, like Wordpress, and you compose your blog entries onlie, as I do, neverthleess make sure you post a copy of your blog into a word document and save it on your computer. And go back into your archives and save all those entries as well.

Just to be on the safe side.

In addition, depending on what your blog is about, I'd recommend keepig an Excel file with title and topic and date posted, for all your blogs. It will help you go back in and find a certain blog (if you've got hundreds and hundreds of entries) and there's always a use for it!