January8
Late yesterday afternoon there was a *ahem* slight scare amongst bloggers using Google’s Blogger where a blog (not a book blog) was deleted by Google. I reiterate my last post where I say that this is a rare occurrence and would normally only occur if the terms of service were broken. I’m not entirely sure of the circumstances but some people are suspecting it was to do with a breach of copyright (which is the main reason Blogger or a host would terminate an account by the way!).
Anyway with this in mind and that my mentions column on Twitter almost exploded yesterday and partly thanks to The Bookette for suggesting it – here is my handy dandy guide to back up your blog (regardless of if you use Blogger (new or old version) or WordPress (the absolutely best blogging platform in the world – you know I speak the truth lol).
In fact if you own a blog it’s something you should be doing anyway – it’s not just Blogger / Host deleting your account that could cause problems.
Please note for simplicity (and length) I’ve left out how to backup the design for Blogger.
So on with the guide – just look at the section you need – can you guess which platform is a little but easier? (but please look at the bottom if you have your own domain!)
Blogger
I’m guessing most people reading this will be using the new version of blogger so I’ll tackle this first! If you’re using the older version (blue background) the steps are similar but the screens will look different and you can miss out clicking Other in step 2 as the export link is on the main settings page.
Step 1: Login to Blogger
I won’t explain this step 
Step 2: Visit the Settings Page
On the blogger dashboard find your blog’s name. To the right hand side is an orange button and next to that (on the right hand side) is a drop down menu, click this and select settings:
On the left hand side at the bottom of the menu select ‘other’ (under the settings header):
Step 3: Export & Backup
Now click the export button (the middle link at the top of the screen under the Blog Tools section):
A box should pop up – click the big orange button which says ‘Download Blog’:
Save the file somewhere where you’ll remember where it is – this file only includes the post content (not pages if what I’ve read is true!) so if you’ve been uploading your images to Blogger please bare in mind that is where they will stay. To date I’m not quite sure how you would get the images out – if somebody knows let me know and I’ll update.
WordPress
I know most people won’t be using this but it’s helpful to know anyway!
Step 1: Login
Again I won’t bother explaining this step
Step 2: Click Export
From any WordPress admin screen click the export link in the left hand navigation (under the tools menu):
Step 2: Export & Backup
Leave the default option of all content selected and click the ‘download export file’ button.
Step 3: Images, Plugin & Theme
Again this will not download the images – to get these you’ll need to use an FTP client (like FileZilla) and download the upload folder under the wp-content folder which is normally found in the public_html folder.
For plugins download the one’s you want from the um, plugins folder again in the wp-content folder and for the theme download your current theme from the themes folder (again you guessed it in the wp-content folder).
Worried About Domains?
Don’t be – if you registered your domain through Blogspot / Google – Google (like a good host) will have registered it with you (yay!) and that means that legally they can do zip with it. If you want to use it elsewhere, go ahead, even if they delete your account they still have to give you access to your domain and if they don’t there places that you can go who will quite literally overrule them (for a small fee).
In the UK (if your domain ends in .uk so .co.uk, .org.uk etc) the organisation responsible for these domains is Nominet – and they have a form which you can fill in which will allow you as the domain owner to move it elsewhere – and Google can’t do dot about it 
.
If you’re domain is registered elsewhere the same rules apply (providing your domain is registered to you), if you’re new to domain registration I don’t think you can go wrong with Daily by the way
I hope this guide helps in some way, you might also be interested to know that if anyone is considering switching to WordPress (or any other platform) this is the first step in making the switch!
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