Blogger Magic - Export From A Blogger Blog

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.

Backed up content is not a waste of time or resources.

Backing up content - comments, pages (static pages), and posts (dynamic pages) is a very quick task - that consumes a minimal amount of resources.

Many people will benefit from a daily routine of backup. Backed up content can be used, in a variety of ways - if it is available.

Periodic backup of content is simple - and may save you much inconvenience.

Start from Settings - Other.

Click on "Back up Content".

Click on "Save to your computer".

Some operating systems may leave the browser, to save your content.

Click on "Leave".

Now, you use the file manager provided by your operating system, to select a file / folder, and actually save the file.



"Back up Content" is useful, in several tasks.

You'll find that daily backups uses a minimal amount of time, and computer resources. And even if you don't ever use the backed up content, you will be better off having it.

• Exporting content, to a different publishing system.
• Moving content, to another blog.
• Recovering from a corrupted template.
• Saving updated content.

All of these tasks use the "Back up Content" wizard. Do this regularly - and you won't regret it. Just remember where you save the content. Setup one or more standard folders, on your local computer.

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Using the "Back up Content" #Blogger dashboard wizard is a good task to do frequently - and regularly. It will save you a lot of time and trouble, if ever needed.

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Export / Import, And Page / Post Publishing Limits

Not all blog owners understand the connection between page / post import, and spam limitation.

We see the occasional question, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, about page / post import, and daily publishing limits.

Why I can not import content, to my blogs?

Note that "Automatically publish" is selected, in the blog discussed here.

I've suggested a few times that use of "Automatically publish all imported posts and pages" is a bad idea, when importing many blogs - because it abuses the computer and home Internet connection.

Here, we see another reason for not using "Automatically publish".

Import, with "Automatically publish", will exceed the daily publishing volume.

Blogger limits daily posting volume. Any blog with more than 40 - 50 pages / posts, when it is exported then imported, will be a problem - if "Automatically publish" is selected during "Import".

"Sorry, you have exceeded the maximum number of entries."



If you import, and publish as you import, you will exceed the daily publishing limit. Your import will fail - because you are publishing more than the daily limit.

Without a daily limit, spammers could flood post their blogs.

If this limit was not in place, spammers could flood their blogs with pages and posts, by simply creating multiple blogs with multiple pages / posts, export from each blog, then import to other blogs - and publish while importing.

If Blogger is to control spam, they have to limit page / post publishing. With the daily limit of 50 pages and posts / 24 hours, that is slightly more than 1 page or post every 1/2 hour - allowing for no sleep, or other non blogging activity.

People have to be encouraged to do something, besides publish - or how do you get material, for the blog? If people are going to publish a blog - and do other things besides publish a blog - there has to be a daily limit.

Genuine blog owners have to not spend all their time publishing their blogs.

Blog owners need to be encouraged to publish blogs with informative, interesting, and original content - so people will read the blogs, and search engines will index the blogs. Automated blog content, a favourite way of "bulking up" a blog with spam, has to be discouraged, to give genuine blog owners a chance.

Without a daily limit, people who publish blogs with personal content would be at a disadvantage to spammers who publish pages and posts with automated content. Using Import, with no limits, would be an excellent way to publish spam in a never ending daily activity.

Use "Import & back up" in 3 steps, to avoid the limit block.

1. Export pages and posts, from one blog.
2. Import pages and posts, to a second blog.
3. Publish imported pages and posts, at a limited rate, selectively.

That is the best way for genuine blog owners, to use the Export / Import ("Import & back up") option.

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#Blogger has a daily page / post publishing limit, to encourage blog owners to publish blogs with informative, interesting, and original content. Automated page / post publishing is allowed - but subject to a daily limit.

Without a daily limit, spammers would abuse the Blogger infrastructure, with mass produced and scraped content - and Blogger would become one more spam haven.

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"Export / Import" Is Now "Import & back up"

Blog owners who need to export blog content are reporting confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

I'm trying to export my blog, but when I click "Settings > Other", there is no "Export" option!

Not all blog owners realise that the "Export" wizard is now "Back up".

Changes in functionality may perplex blog owners, too.

There are various ways to use "export" and "import" features, that may involve Blogger, and non Blogger content hosts.

Not all content will transfer, equally well - whether a Blogger or non Blogger host is involved, as either the source or target. The Blogger blog owner, using "Import & back up", will be responsible for resolving any differences.

"Import & back up" is now used to export and import Content (pages, posts & comments).

"Import Content" is used, as previously.

"Back up Content" is the former Export wizard.



"Import Content" is used, as previously.

When you import content, consider the multiple possibilities of XML files.

• Archive / Backup comments, pages, and posts.
• Archive / backup templates.
• Publish newsfeeds in Atom and RSS.

Observe the nature and source of any XML file, whenever importing. "Import Content" will work best, with comments, pages, and posts backed up from Blogger.

• It may, or may not, work with content Backed up ("Exported") from other content hosting services.
• It may, or may not, work with templates, Backed up from Blogger or from a third party source.
• It won't work, with newsfeed content - or other XML data files.

And, as always, be careful when using the "Automatically publish ..." option, any time you import content.

"Back up Content" is the former Export wizard.

"Backup Content" will be most useful, when used to Import content to another Blogger blog. It may, or may not, work to Import content to another content hosting service.

"Backup Content" is most useful, when you plan how to use the content being backed up. And you will benefit, from regular use.

When moving content from, or into, another hosting service, note limitations.

Every content hosting service - Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress, and many many others - will have their own data management policies. A backup / export file, created under any one service may, or may not, work under another service.

If you experience problems, you'll be arbitrating diagnostics provided by the source and target tech support groups - whatever you can find. You will be the point person, in dealing with any problems that involve multiple hosts.

Moving content between services is not a project for the beginning Blogger blog owner. It's similar in complexity to using a Blogger custom domain outside Blogger.

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The recent redesign of the #Blogger dashboard "Export / Import" wizard, at Settings - Other, has perplexed some blog owners.

Not everybody knows that "Backup" is the same task as "Export". And few blog owners understand the complexities of using XML type files, with different sources and targets.

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How You Should Backup Your Blog Will Depend Upon How You Plan To Restore It

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?

One of the simplest solutions for a backup, which some Blogger experts will suggest, is to use the Export / Import wizard, in Settings - Other.

• Before disaster strikes, Export your posts and comments.
• After disaster strikes, simply Import your posts and comments, from a convenient backup.

Besides backing up comments and posts, backup the template.

Similarly, some experts may suggest backing up the template.

• Before disaster strikes, use the dashboard Template "Backup / Restore" wizard, to backup the template.
• After disaster strikes, use the wizard to restore the template.

But consider other components, too.

There are many components of a Blogger blog - not just the comments, posts, and template.

• Accessories.
• Comments.
• Decorations.
• Gadgets.
• Posts.
• Layout.
• URL.

Before you plan how to backup your blog, you need to decide which of these features is most important to you, and what problem from which you wish to recover.

Backing up accessories right now is not so easily done.

The accessories (decorations, gadgets) is one component of the blog which is most frequently missed, after a deleted blog is recreated / restored using a "comments / posts / template backup" restore strategy. Both graphic decorations, and XML based gadgets, may not be easily backed up, and may present a challenge when the blog is restored, or recreated.

XML gadgets, such as bloglists and linklists, may contain a lot of detail, which is installed into the blog one entry at a time - and there is no known way to automate a backup or restore of these gadgets.

The URL cannot be recovered, by creating or restoring.

Recovering the URL is one of the most subtle details, that may not always be considered by many blog owners. The URL is relevant in two ways. Most blogs which are important enough, for the owner to want to backup, have acquired reputation - both with people (readers, subscribers, and viewers), and with search engines.

Some blogs will link the various posts to each other - as I do with this blog. In either case, the recovered blog is not as useful, unless the URL is also recovered.

If the blog is deleted, the URL may not be recoverable.

If the blog is deleted by Blogger - or by the owner - the URL may not be available, for blog recovery. When Blogger deletes a blog as a suspected abusive content host, the URL is locked to the blog. The only way to recover the URL is to have the blog reviewed, and restored to availability.

When a blog is deleted by the owner, the blog must be restored by the owner - within 90 days after deletion. In either case, a backup is useless.

If you have a personal blog, containing just posts (and maybe comments from known family or friends), backing up the comments and posts makes sense. For a publicly known blog, containing various accessories, and having a known URL, you'll want to plan your backup / restore strategy using a bit more effort.

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The Multiply Blogging Platform Is Ending

Recently, people who use the popular Multiply blogging platform were given bad news.

From December 1st, we will unfortunately no longer be able to support Multiply in its current form - notably we will be removing the social networking and content sharing part of Multiply (photos, videos, blogs, social messaging, etc.). We have decided to discontinue providing and hosting these services, as we have concluded that other Internet sites who are committed to social networking services will do a better job serving you than we can.

They are, right now, unsure what options they can offer, to help existing Multiply blogs be transitioned to alternatives such as Blogger.

We're still finalising the exact list of formats and platforms that we'll export to, but users will be able to download all their original media and data, (in some flexible formats) and also able to migrate directly to alternative blogging platforms.

So, let's see what options Blogger Engineering can offer. Watch this space, for updates.

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