Monday, June 22, 2009

Some blogging tips for protecting and if you wish for more visitors on 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 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 your blog to 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 unless you have those specific blogs. It also affects loading and results in lesser number of visitors. I avoid those blogs which are filled with all kinds of gadgetry. It takes away the pleasure of reading, let alone commenting.

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. I almost went insane.

12 comments:

poefusion said...

Thanks for the tips. I will have to check out Google Webmaster tools and Yahoo Site Explorer. Several months back I backed up my blog at Blog Backup Online. It doesn't backup your pictures though.

Bone said...

Good tips, Gautami.

I "backed up" my blog to a Wordpress one, but it's been over a year now. So I need to do that again. Thanks for the reminder :)

Shari said...

Thank-you for this post - I am so sorry that you lost your blog. I would be devastated too. It was hard for me at first to share things, and having come such a long way, it would be terrible to lose it all. Will be looking into your tips.

venuss66 said...

Thank you.

sarah said...

I also lost my weblog a while ago - so may I add to your list, beware of free templates! They may be easy to upload and look nice, and may even be easy to remove - but they can ruin your underlying html.

Lorraine said...

Thanks very much for these tips, I how that somehow,everything you lost comes back to you in one way or another :)

Deborah Godin said...

I know barely enough about all this to write a blog, and generally don't have gadgets and widgets because I have trouble figuring out how to add them. Now I think that's a good thing, after reading this! Thanks for passing along all the useful tips, and sorry you had to lose so much to learn them!

Matt said...

Thanks for the tips. I haven't thought about backing up the blog until recently.

Whitesnake said...

almost went insane????

hmmm!

Ibin Kuz said...

Tips for a good beginner blogger like me. Thank you for the information.

J. Andrew Lockhart said...

good ideas

LA Nickers said...

Great advice. Thanks.

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