The Real Blogger Status

One of the most useful skills, when maintaining and publishing a blog, is backing up the content. As you publish a blog, it's a very good idea to periodically backup the content - comments, pages, and posts. Sometimes, backed up content may save you hours of anguish.

People frequently observe significant differences between products from Apple / Google / Microsoft . Since all three corporations are separate (and highly competitive), they have their own corporate philosophies and development timelines. Despite all of that, Blogger tries to make their product supportable, across all corporate lines. Unfortunately, the Blogger service is not always consistently usable, with all browsers - or mobile computer / smart phone apps.

People reporting a problem with blog access / performance, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , will be frequently advised to diagnose their problems using affinity / differential testing . Some diagnostic advice starts with simple instructions to " clear cache, cookies, and sessions ". Some people, alternately, advise "use a different browser" - and test as a reader. These different strategies, seemingly redundant, will frequently lead to different results.

It's always wise to backup the blog contents - and the template. If you are publishing a blog, you may occasionally make a mistake. Being able to recover from a mistake, using backed up content, is always a good idea. Blogger provides a dashboard wizard to backup the blog template - and a complementary wizard, to backup blog content - comments, pages, and posts .

Whenever dealing with any problem with a blog, you should verify the URLs involved. Some of the most baffling problems, with blog connectivity, identity, or ownership, can start from simple typographical errors. This possibility will involve both native "blogspot.com" and custom domain URLs. The Publishing wizard window, in the Blogger dashboard Settings - Basic page, is essential for identifying errors. Whether you paste or type a URL into the registrar's zone editor, the Publishing wizard, or the browser address window, you can make a mistake. Checking the Publishing wizard is as important as examining a Dig log extract - or as viewing an HTTP trace .

We see evidence of occasional confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about blog content responsibility. One of my blog posts disappeared. I have tried every known recovery procedure. There is no way to actually contact anyone from Blogger Support. Long ago, Blogger Support would provide assistance, in recovery of deleted posts. That service ended some time ago .

We see the frustration, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , almost daily. My blog has disappeared from my dashboard, and my subscribers are getting spam! How do I get my blog returned to me? and I got a new computer, and now I can't access my blog. Who can I call at Google, to get this fixed?? These are two blog owners who have the same problem, but do not understand the connection.

Every month in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , we see another blog owner, trying to import and publish. Why is it taking so dang long? I started yesterday - it's just spinning, and getting nowhere! This blog owner is not having a good time, importing posts.

When you accept membership in someone else's blog, you are going to use a different browser, than the one used by the owner. If you are accepting membership in your own blog, as part of a blog ownership transfer that you started, you might be tempted to use one browser, for the entire process. If you do this, you can end up with a blog owned under your current Blogger account - but using your (would be) new account's email address. This may cause you to lose control of the blog. If you manage to retain control of your blog, you'll continue to use the current Blogger account - as the new Blogger account will never get control.

When you rename a blog, the most that you can do, to keep the old URL useful, is to setup a stub post , with a clickable link to the new URL. Yo! The blog is now at xxxxxxx.blogspot.com!! Blogger forbids gateway blogs, and similar blog to blog redirections . When you rename a post, you can setup a custom redirect - and automatically redirect your readers to the post, under its new URL. You should take advantage of this option, if you change a post URL.

Occasionally, we see a cry of anguish, about account recovery, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I need to publish my blog, but I forgot the password. I can access my WordPress account though - and my photo - -on my WordPress blog - clearly is me. Can I speak to a real person, so I can get my Blogger blog back? Here, we have a blog owner, who does not understand the relationship between Google, and non Google, services. Different companies, which use the Internet, and / or provide services which let people use the Internet, have their own standards for account maintenance and recovery.

We've been seeing occasional reports of problems, vaguely described in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , referencing posts being overwritten by other posts. I have been working on my post, for days. This morning, I opened it, to edit - and discovered that it now contains material from another, newer post! How do I recover my older post? The answer is simple. You can't. Blogger is not a Content Management System - and when you destroy a post, it's gone. This report is a bit annoying. We can suspect that there is a problem - but we get no clue how to prevent the same disaster from destroying our own blog.

If you've ever done programming - including updating existing code (generally made by another person, who you grow to hate) - you know of the value of backups. Any time you improve or repair existing code, there is always the possibility of making mistakes. Code is written by people - and people make mistakes. Sometimes, the mistake may be in the code, as originally created (and used for months, until you touched it). Other times you make one mistake on your own, and the whole thing crashes. Experienced programmers know that making mistakes is part of programming. When you make a mistake, be prepared to recover from - and learn from - the mistake. This is true, when making template changes, in your blog.

One naive attitude, about publishing a Blogger blog, involves adding features to one's blog - and the observation that every Blogger feature or modification is not uniformly available, with entry level instructions. We see the complaints, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , too frequently. I can't get this feature to work! Why is Blogger so complicated? and I have no idea what I need to do. Please guide me, in simple language - as if I were 6 years old! Both attitudes show lack of understanding about technical projects in general - and Blogger features, and modifications, in particular.

THis month, we have several reports in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue from owners who make backup blogs. Why was my blog deleted, by Blogger, as spam? Some blog owners innocently create multiple blogs, to back up their main blog. Unfortunately, having multiple blogs with the same content may make the blogs look like a spam blog farm - and Blogger detects and deletes spam blog farms.

The process of examining browser source listings for a blog, and of having a blog owner carefully examine blog template code, is an important part of diagnosing many Blogger problems. With blogs published to dynamic templates, neither source listings , nor template "Edit HTML" , contain as much useful information, as with blogs published to non dynamic templates. Dynamic templates reference scripts, that are hosted in external libraries - and that cannot be updated or viewed. The idea of having templates that were less customisable was originally supposed to encourage people to work on post content, and increase stability of their blogs - not create instability.

This month, we're seeing an interesting collection of problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about custom domain setup. Why is my blog offline - occasionally? And Why do some (just some!) of my readers tell me they can't see my blog? Investigating the problem, we see that the domain is, indeed online - some of the time. Investigating the DNS addressing, robustly, we find an all too frequently seen set of name servers: mydomain.com. 14400 IN A 216.239.32.21 www.mydomain.com. 14400 IN CNAME ghs.google.com. What we see here is a domain, setup by someone who thought that one server would be 'good enough' to get by .

We see various complaints, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about perceived poor response, in removing offensive blogs. I've reported this blog, repeatedly, for impersonating me - and it's still online! or That other blog was removed from service after only a couple of days! Why is this blog still online?? These bloggers do not understand that complaint volume, against different blogs, can affect how promptly Blogger Policy / Google Legal can take action, and remove problem blogs.

We see signs of naivete, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . too often. I gave my boyfriend (girlfriend, former spouse, Internet acquaintance, whatever) my account password - and now, I can't access my account. This is a problem which Blogger cannot resolve , in any way. Please, never ever share your Blogger account. Blogger accounts, like Blogger blogs, are free. If someone who you know would like to read your private blog - or contribute to your team blog - add that person as a blog member, and let her / him use his / her own Blogger account (new, or existing).

Spammers protect their content against "unfair" deletion, and provide uninterrupted service to their "customers", by publishing multiple blogs, in spam blog farms . Owners of better designed spam blog farms minimise the risk to their blogs, by separating the hacking / porn / spam content (Payload), from the immediately visible Blogger blogs (Collector). Spammers use a tiered structure of blogs, in their blog farms. Collector blogs. Distributor blogs. Payload blogs. Only the Payload blogs contain easily identified hacking / porn / spam material - and only the Collector blogs are immediately visible to the abuse detection processes.

Occasionally, we see the query, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? How do I change these captions? / Add this feature? / Remove specific components of this feature? Conversely, we see in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken Why does this new Blogger feature not work in my blog? These questions, in many cases, may be related. We can see the connection, when we look closer at how the changes are applied.

The Custom Domain Ownership Verification requirement has been with us for over a year - and we still see confusion, and easily corrected mistakes . One of the most frustrating mistakes involves mistyping of the details. I keep getting an "Error 12". My registrar insists that the DNS addresses are right. But, the registrar must be wrong, since the blog just can't be published! When you type the base domain DNS addresses, into the registrar's zone editor, eyeballing what you type is somewhat obvious. Either you get it right - or you don't. Typing the domain ownership verification details, on the other hand, is not so simple.

We see this question, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , a couple times / year. Can I keep using a Classic template on my blog - or must I upgrade? Right now, Blogger won't require anybody to upgrade. You can stay with a Classic template, if you want. That said, there is no guarantee that the next major Blogger problem will not leave Blogger Engineering deciding to cut their losses, and move forward. If we can get Blogger back online with Layout and better today - as opposed to Classic templates, next week - let's drop Classic templates, and bring it back, today. They've moved forward, this way, in the past - and next week, they could, again. Eventually, this will happen. One day, Blogger will come back online - but without your blog.

When you go to the doctor to report a health problem, you'll likely tell him Doctor, I have a pain. and he will likely ask you Where does it hurt? If you tell him My stomach hurts. he will probably ask When does it hurt? and How long has it been hurting? None of these are formalities or mere protocol, they are systematic problem identification procedures. We diagnose problems with Blogger, using similar techniques.

We see panic, exhibited by many blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I used the W3 Template Validator, and got hundreds of errors! Is my blog broken? This blog owner, like many others, does not understand the differences between W3 Standard HTML / XHTML, and Blogger HTML / XML. The unpleasant truth is that, ever since Blogger released the Layout class templates , in 2007, Blogger has been providing templates that can't be successfully validated using HTML / XHTML standards. Blogger has a lot of features that don't validate, according to public standards.

One of the most misunderstood features of Blogger blogs is the mysterious bX codes . Every day, we see the frustration It says there's something wrong and I should give this "error code" so Blogger can fix it. What should I do? Where can I send the "error code"?

This week, we're seeing a number of reports from blog owners with Blogger accounts recently hacked. I was asked to change my password, because of suspicious activity. Having done that, my blogs are now deleted! With hacked Blogger / Google accounts, causing deleted blogs, there's not a lot of advice that we can provide. As you just discovered, the account is recovered almost immediately. Blog recovery, unfortunately, takes longer - sometimes, 1 to 2 days. You'll have to wait, patiently, until your blogs are verified by Google Security staff. We're also seeing the normal amount of reports of blogs deleted by Blogger, when detected for malware, porn, or spam. In some cases, blog review ends with the conclusion that the blog was not, in fact, deleted for a TOS violation. In these cases, the blog won't be restored by Blogger Support.

Our Blogger accounts, and blogs, are under persistent attack by some rather nasty Internet users. Hackers, using other peoples computers, are constantly attempting to "guess" our Blogger passwords, and take control of our Blogger accounts and blogs. Blogger accounts are particularly vulnerable to attack , because too many blog owners Reveal their account names (email addresses) to the world. Base their passwords upon real life details. Publish blogs, where their real life details are visible to the world. Some blog owners think that by using only one computer forever, they should be able to register that one computer as theirs, and require Google to simply deny access to their Blogger / Google accounts, from any other computer. This is a very simple solution - and it's one which is doomed to failure.

One Blogger mystery involves the varying periods of blog unavailability, after hacking activity is detected . My blog just disappeared from my dashboard - and no, it's not listed under "Deleted blogs"! When the owner mentions the notice about "suspicious" / "unusual" account activity, or having unlocked the account (by solving a CAPTCHA, receiving a phone message, changing the password) - and is advised to wait "24 to 48 hours" - many ask the obvious. Is "24 to 48 hours" really accurate? In reality, the legendary "24 to 48" hour time period is only a ball park figure - and both Blogger / Google, and the blog owner, contribute to the uncertainty.

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?

Not all Blogger blog owners know that the ability to comment is a privilege which they control. Like the ability to publish and read posts , it is also a responsibility which they need to control, carefully. Any blog owner who wishes to publish a blog, and not be subject to frequent deletion of the blog, as a suspected malware or spam host, needs to understand the responsibilities, and the risks.

Occasionally, we see an odd problem report about Reading List content, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . How did this blog get into my Reading List? I did not Follow this blog! Most people will not, knowingly, Follow a spam blog. This is one reason why Following is so popular - each blog owner, and blog reader can easily bypass, and actively block - spam . Spammers have, however, found devious ways to convince people to Follow them .

Look at the Audience display, in Stats. How many different entries do you see, in "Pageviews by Browser" and "Pageviews by Operating System"? Stats lists are limited to 10 entries, each. Do you ever wonder if those lists, like the other Stats lists, should be longer? How do we ever hope to observe our blogs, and see what they look like, for our many different readers? One of the challenges of publishing a Blogger blog is developing a blog that looks good, on every reader's browser and computer . The number of combinations of operating system times browser brand times browser version - any of which can create a display oddity, when viewing any blog or website - is staggering.

It's a fairly simple matter to determine the newsfeed URL, for any given blog, by examining the blog template code . Besides the base feed, a blog may publish an extensive array of additional feeds, which won't be listed directly in the blog template code. You may use any given feed , in networking your blog, with any Google or non Google service. Starting with any feed URL, what do I do? I could just open my favourite feed reader, or social networking web site, and paste the URL in place. But what if the feed reader or web site wasn't working properly, or I misunderstood the instructions? What if I see Invalid URL or the like, what do I do?

As custom domain publishing becomes simply one more feature to add to your Blogger blog, some blog owners decide that the domain that they are using, right now, is not to their liking. Fortunately, with a Blogger blog, the process of changing your domain to another is not complicated - hoping that you have the right tools, and make the right decisions. Buy (as required), and setup , a new domain URL. Publish the blog back to BlogSpot. Publish the blog to the new domain. All that considered, there is a fourth step which many blog owners manage to overlook - until long after they have completed the third.

So many problems with custom domain publishing start with incorrectly setup DNS addresses. Sometimes the problems start with misunderstanding about the rigid requirements of DNS addresses , other times misunderstanding about how to use the Domain Manager tools provided - and sometimes the registrar gets involved , and causes problems. Many times, I'll offer advice in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , and the reply will indicate the confusion. Here's a screenshot of my settings - I can't see a problem! or I just got my registrar to setup the DNS addresses, as you gave me. Surely, they are right? But we diagnose the problem, and find that the addresses are still wrong. In business, we learn of the importance of using well known, standard testing procedures. People setting up a custom domain would do well to learn this concept, also.

Too many Blogger blog owners, seeking recovery of a long dormant account, overlook the realities of the Blogger business relationship . I started the blog 10 years ago, I have forgotten the password, the email address is long gone - and I need the blog deleted now. When told that deletion is not possible , if you cannot provide proof of ownership, they next ask for personal assistance. But isn't there a person to whom I can explain my problem? Surely we can reach some understanding! The reality is that Blogger wants to help their customers - when helping their customers provides them some business benefit.

The practice of " Due Diligence " is a responsible precaution, taken by all businesses that have any future as businesses. Blogger / Google, being a business, subscribes to this practice. This affects their involvement with us, their "customers", in various ways - though not all "customers" understand the implications. Some blog owners find out about the limitations unwillingly, in discussions in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken .

One subject which generates some frustration, as reported in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , concerns blog ownership - and specifically, "How do I take over ownership of a blog which I need to control?". In some cases, this is because the blog was owned by someone who just died , or maybe somebody optimistically chose the wrong "friend" to co-administer a blog . As Blogger blogs become a more common website platform for small businesses, we are seeing a third scenario How do I get control of the blog about my business? The employee who setup the blog has left the company. Like similar issues about blog ownership , this is not as simple as it may appear.

When you go to the doctor to report a health problem, you'll likely tell her (him) Doctor, I have a pain. and he (she) will likely ask you Where does it hurt? If you tell her My stomach hurts. he will probably ask When does it hurt? and How long has it been hurting? None of these are formalities or mere protocol, they are systematic problem identification procedures. If you write in BHF: Something Is Broken and report My readers can't access my blog. or maybe I can't access Blogger! you'll likely get similar questions.

Most bloggers don't just write blog content, they need to look at who is reading what they write . They do this, using visitor logs and meters, like Blogger Stats, Google Analytics, SiteMeter, and StatCounter. Visitor logs and meters are demographic and statistical tools, which show how many people are reading the pages and posts in the blog. When a blog is new, with few visitors, you'll want to examine accurate statistics. Perversely, when the blog is new, and you spend some time visiting the blog to check out the content, and test the changes, you'll see your own visits reflected in the log entries and numbers. The newer any blog is, the fewer visits it will get - and the more statistically significant owner activity will be. Since the purpose of using a visitor meter is to monitor visitor reaction to the blog, so you can improve visitor activity, you'll want to ignore your own visits to the blog.

There's a popular adage In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. I would amend this to read In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and browser differences. I've written about this before , yet still we see the occasional confusion and naivete, reported in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Why does my blog look so good under Firefox, yet so scrambled under Internet Explorer? I can name three possible problems, which may be present in the template in any blog. Custom code. Old code. Third party code. Custom code . If you installed any template tweaks , did you test your changes in multiple browsers ? Old code . Blogger releases various changes , in the templates which they provide. If you got your template last year, there may be a fix that could help you, this year. Third party code . I've published various warnings about third party code. This article continues that series. In case you s...

There are different ways to get into a properly designed swimming pool. Most pools have a shallow end, possibly with steps - and a hand rail. Cautious people like to walk down the steps, slowly, holding on to the rail. At the other end, where it is deep, some folks like to dive (head first), or jump (feet first), and go in quickly. Summer is just around the corner - in the USA anyway. Some pools, that are not heated, you may not enjoy using for a couple more months. If you dive in to an unheated pool, you may not enjoy the feeling (you may not have any feeling in your body). Use the steps, or hop in to the shallow end, if you're experienced in early summer swimming. If you've been reading about my experiences with the new post editor, and about the new designer templates, you may wonder about how to get into that swimming pool. The water isn't very clear, and you may not know how deep it is anywhere. And, it's a good idea to know where the steps are, so you ...

When you tweak the code in a gadget, based upon my instructions, you'll be editing the template HTML . Or, you might be using the Layout wizard, to locate and remove a problem gadget. You'll do most editing with widget code unfolded . You'll have a lot of code to sift through - and with many gadgets in your blog, there's always the chance that you'll see the code for one gadget, and confuse it for another. If you delete or tweak the wrong gadget, you may not like what you get. Before deleting anything, or editing the template, take an extra minute, and find the specific gadget, by its name. This could save you a lot of grief.

Your blog depends upon traffic for its success. Anything that affects the traffic to your blog, such as a change in the URL, affects the success of your blog. If you republish your blog to a different BlogSpot URL, as with migration to a custom domain , you will not lose any content. Both comments, posts, the template, and all custom settings, will stay with the blog. And if you plan the republishing effort, you can minimise the loss of traffic.

I use excerpts of articles from other websites, in a few of my posts - when the other websites provide more in depth description of the issue being discussed. I use some websites, such as WikiPedia , more than others. It's good practice to at least link back to the originating website, when copying or quoting any significant amount of unique content. There are so few restrictions, in general, what content we may include in our blogs - so it makes sense to be polite when we include content from other websites. In most cases, and to keep my posts relatively short, I prefer to simply quote a brief, relevant snippet of content, and link back to the originating website.

Your blog depends upon traffic for its success. Anything that affects the traffic to your blog, such as any change in the URL , affects the success of your blog. Publishing the blog to a custom domain, like renaming the blog , will affect traffic to your blog . The effects of the change will vary from blog to blog, because of the different traffic to every different blog. Followers . People who find your blog because of recommendations by other people. Search engines . Robotic processes which methodically surf your blog, and provide dynamic indexing to people who search for information. Subscribers . People who read your content from their newsfeed reader, such as the dashboard Reading List. Viewers . People who read your content from their browser. No two blogs are the same - and no two blogs will have the same combinations of traffic sources .

Have any of you seen this sort of offer, when looking at third party accessories, and contemplating installation? You don't do a thing! For Blogger blogs, we offer "EZ Install"! Just give us the blog URL, and an account name and password, sit back, and let us do the work! and maybe later, you're posting in BHF: Something Is Broken Somebody is posting spam posts on my blog! or Where did these ads come from? I didn't put them there! or worse yet Why is my blog deleted? I don't post malicious script! All of these concerns have been noted, in real problem reports, and were caused by real mistakes.

In Information Technology ("computer" / "Internet") organisations with any size or complexity, one of the fastest growing groups in the organisation will be Change Management. The job of Change Management is to coordinate all changes in the product that involve more than one component of the product. This is because any change that involves multiple components generally involves changes made by more than one person or group in the organisation. Your blog is a complex structure, and frequently can be as complex as any moderate sized IT product (yes, really). You have an edge over many IT organisations, though - you own and control your blog (though you don't control the changes made by Blogger, which can contribute to your observed problems). You, personally, don't (probably don't) need a Change Management staff, but you could do well to use Change Management principles, when making changes to your blog. Having well documented changes can help you tri...

Periodically, we see an anxious query I just got an email from a friend Your blog looks like crap. What do I do now? Help! Oh yes, I think I tweaked the template a couple weeks ago. So if you made the change to the template "a couple weeks ago", why did you wait until today , to find out from your friend that you have a problem? Blogger Blogs are easy to work on. As easy as they are to work on, though, they still demand respect, and responsible practices are still relevant. If you make changes, test your changes using different browsers. Any time that you make a change to the blog, or even when you post a new article, check out the change, preferably using multiple browsers. When you test, you need to see the blog as your readers may see it - so prepare to logout and login a few times, to view changes then make adjustments. If you have a second browser or computer , this would be an excellent way to use one - to stay logged in on one browser, and make changes m...

As I told you earlier, in Backup Your Template (Classic), you should always keep a copy of your template local to your computer, just as you should always keep a complete copy of your blog itself. That advice hasn't changed for New Blogger blogs; if anything, it's more necessary.

One of the neatest features of Blogger "One Button Publishing" is the "one button" design. Don't like the layout of the blog? Change the template! Don't like the colour of the background (the post area, the sidebar, ...)? Change the colour! Don't like the Title, don't like the URL, ... Whoa. Slow down. The URL, that is the Universal Resource Locator, is known all over the Internet. Or should be, if you're publicising the blog properly . That's your public name - don't be changing that on the spur of the moment.

If you create a blog, and work on it, eventually it will rise in value. Given enough work, and reader interest, it may even get a Google Page Rank of some decent value. Let's say you manage to make something of your blog, then tire of it. The normal thing would be to delete it . Delete it - it's gone - move on to something new. Simple, right? At one time, you could have just deleted your blog, using the dashboard Settings - Other - "Delete blog" wizard, in "Blog Tools", without thinking.

Blogger One Button Publishing makes it so easy to setup and maintain a very attractive, organised, and useful website. Anybody who knows how to turn the computer on, practically, can have a Blogger blog. And anybody who knows a minimum about computer coding can have a customised Blogged blog. And that's one of the biggest problems with Blogging. As easy as it is to customise a blog, it is just as easy to screw it up. And the more that you depend upon your blog being online, the sorrier you will be when it's not. Even in businesses, this risk exists. In businesses, though, we practice risk management. You can, and should, do likewise. Backup your blog . Have alternate copies of everything, in various formats. Monitor your logs , even when no problems are being experienced. And when problems are being experienced, involve your logs in diagnosing the problems. Report your problems . Some problems can only be resolved by involving Blogger Support. It's their program -...

OK, you've got a kick ass web site. It's attractive, has good content, and it's nicely organised. Then you get email from your friend Dude, your web site is crap. How did this happen? You think it looks great. Frequently, this happens when you design and test your blog for one browser, and your friend uses another. Firefox and Internet Explorer, which use differing code and display standards, are famous for this problem.

Your blog is almost a living, breathing thing. It's your presence on the web. The posts in your blog are equivalent to the flesh - they give the blog content, features, and personality. The template is equivalent to the skeleton - they give your blog structure. The template isn't visible, like the posts are - but it's equally as important. Change the template, and you change the way all of the posts are displayed. Hopefully, you back up the entire blog, maybe by mirroring it , periodically. That's a very good idea. You don't want to have to involve Blogger Support, except in extreme situations - like when your blog gets deleted . (Note): These instructions are specifically written for Classic blogs. They will work for Layouts blogs also - but for Layouts blogs, Blogger provides a GUI template backup for backing up and restoring the template. It's also a good idea to back up the template. If you make changes to the template, back it up before and ...

If you spend any time developing your blog, you'll probably not going to enjoy recreating it again. Occasionally though, mistakes happen. Maybe you hit the "Delete This Blog" button, and realised it just a microsecond AFTER you hit the Yes button. Too late. Now you have to wait for Blogger to restore it, and hope that it doesn't get taken by the spammers in the meantime. Maybe you just tweaked the template a little too much, and can't get it right again. Maybe you're plagued by the problem of the week, Blog Corruption / Hijacking . Maybe you would like to carry your computer around, and show others your blog (or look at it yourself), even if you're not online. If you can, by a miracle, get Blogger to restore your blog, or if you're one of the lucky ones reading this who doesn't have a problem, take a couple hours and Backup Your Blog. One solution for this need is HTTrack, which is a free and very easy product to use. Note this caution when ...