Saturday, October 3, 2009

Weekly Geeks: Blogging tips

Most of you know that I lost my Reading Room blog to malware. Yes, I did create this blog named Everything Distils with Reading. But I lost my links, ranking, readership and lot more which I had built over three years.

I explored and found 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. (Important update: Importing to wordpress doesn't affect your blog posts in blogger!)

2) Submit your blog to Google webmaster tools or Yahoo Site Explorer. I have added meta tags from both the sites. 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 specific blogs for those. 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.

5) Add
Google Analytics. That way you can learn more about your visiters. Adding something like Feedjit works too.

6) Internal linking in your blog posts works great. That way you get more visitors, which might bring about more commenters.

7) To keep in touch with more and more blogs, use google reader. Believe me it works very well. You can have RSS feed links too. However, the old cut/paste system works wonders.

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.

18 comments:

Sassy Brit @ Alternative-Read.com said...

Great post and you are so right, we should all have a back up. I don't! I back up the template, but that doesn't cover the posts!

This is something you've brought to my attention and I need to act on it fast. LOL I don't want to lose stuff that relates way back to 2005!

Thank you so much for pointing this out, Gautami!

Care said...

I really don't know what I would do if I lost my blog! I'm so sad you had to go through this and so glad you are here to remind us how to prevent such a disaster.

Sarah said...

What a sad story. You are right about the investment of creativity; I would be heart broken to lose my blog.

So sorry this happened to you. Thanks for the timely warning. Off now to cast a critical eye over my widgets...

Sassy Brit @ Alternative-Read.com said...

One thing I am scared of though, Guatami -- does importing blog posts to wordpress as a backup remove them from blogger? I'm very nervous about doing it!

Goodness, now I know how you must have felt losing all of yours - I'm really sorry that happened to you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this post!

jlshall said...

Very nice - thanks for all the tips. But I have the same fears as Sassy Brit - I've been afraid to import my blog to Wordpress because I don't want to to remove it from Blogger. Guess I need to explore that a little.

gautami tripathy said...

@sassy Brit and jlshall: You only important your blog posts to wordpress. All those are left intact in blogger. No worries on that account. The wordpress blog is a back-up blog, just in case...

Nan said...

Thanks for the great tips!

bermudaonion said...

I've been backing my blog up ever since that happened to you. I'm sorry we had to learn that lesson the hard way.

Anonymous said...

You have some great tips. Thanks!

rhapsodyinbooks said...

These are good tips! I'm on wordpress though (not self-hosted) so I can't use Google Analytics and am envious of those who can!

Robin M said...

Great post and thanks for the links.

Chrisbookarama said...

Great reminder. I must back up my blog again just in case. Thanks for the tips!

Kerrie said...

Gautami - that link you have for Google Webmaster didn't want to load for me.
Thanks for the sensible advice. I was thinking last week how I need to back up my blog, and still haven't got around to it. I would be beside myself if it died.
I like the idea of creating a backup blog on wordpress.
I don't believe Blogger allows you to set up Google Analytics does it? - something to do with not being self hosted

pussreboots said...

I have a full back up of my blog. Since my blog though isn't running on a platform it's less vulnerable to malware. My post is here.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this post. I do a fair few of the above already (e.g. backing up my posts, keeping it clean of clutter, internal linking, and using google reader).

I really like your blog, and the way it's laid out. I've been playing with the idea of using google analytics, as well, but... don't know. Just not gotten down to it yet.

Thanks again for the post.

Anonymous said...

I love your tip for Google webmaster! And I should also find out how to backup my wordpress blog... Thanks for your helpful post!

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