Sunday, June 21, 2009

Blogging tips for protecting and more visitors to your blog

Most of you know that I lost my Reading Room blog to malware. Yes, I did create another one in its place, Everything Distils with Reading. Of course I lost my links, ranking, readership and lot more which I had built over three years. Yes, I am getting there but slowly. Three years of work can't be achieved in 50 days.

I explored and found a very simple rules:

1) Have a back up. I find importing blogger blog to Wordpress easy. Create a wordpress blog of the same name and import it, comments and all. You can do it on bloggers too but I found it cumbersome. Do whatever is easy and works for you.

2) Submit your blog to Google webmaster tools or Yahoo Site Explorer. Either works. They search your blog for any kind of malware and inform you. Keep checking regularly.

3) Don't clutter your blog. Keep it simple. More widgets you add, more chances of malware. Avoid animations, music, graphics unles you have those specific blogs. It also affects loading and results in lesser number of visitors. I avoid visiting those blogs which are filled with all kinds of gadgetry. It takes away the pleasure of reading, let alone commenting. Of course I do read them on my google reader.

4) If you have to have a site counter, go for well known ones. Statcounter or sitemeter work well. I had put good counter which was the culprit for Malware.

Explore the net as how to protect your blog. Blogs are extension of our creativity. Losing it is painful. Ask me how. I almost went insane.

19 comments:

ANovelMenagerie said...

Thanks! I used the Google tool!~

Alaine said...

I can't even imagine how heartbreaking it was and how hard it is to get over. But thank you so much for giving us all tips on how to avoid it. I've been following your new blog for a while and I always try to be careful of what I add to my sidebars. Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the cautionary tale! Good tips.

Anonymous said...

Really good tips, thanks!

bermudaonion said...

Great tips - thanks for sharing.

christina said...

Thanks for your tips. I have only been blogging for six months and feel like such a newbie.

I LOVE your template by the way. Did you create it? I've wanted something simple with three even columns but can't figure that one out. I keep losing my links by trying different templates.

I've heard so many people to say to back up but when I use blogger's back up button, it only seems to do the template, not my entries.

I'm still researching though :)

Anonymous said...

I changed my site counter to google. Thank you for your tips!

Staci said...

Thanks for those great tips! I will be using some of them for sure. I am so sorry that you had to experience losing your creation!!

ds said...

Gautami, these are wonderful tips. I will definitely try to implement some of them. Thank you!

Unknown said...

Great tips! I didn't realise that something as simple as a site counter could cause so many problems. I hope you manage to get back to where you were before as soon as possible, and I'll bear all your thoughts in mind whenever I am tempted to add something new to my blog.

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

This was great info; thanks for the thoughtful post.

Beth F said...

Thanks for the tips and the warning.

Sandra said...

Great advice, I'm putting some of it into practise right now,thank you.

The Book Resort said...

Thank you for the incredible tips.

The Reading Momster said...

:'(
I know your pain... i have experienced ti as well!

Serena said...

I'm glad that you provided this helpful information. I really am glad that you decided to create a new blog for us to enjoy even after losing your other one.

Serena said...

how do you search for malware using google webmaster tools?

Teddy Rose said...

Thanks so much for sharing what you learned the hard way. Hopefully it will help others prevent this from happening to them. I just checked out the Google tool.

Anna said...

Great tips! Thanks!

--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric