Since I have my ‘focus’ turned on, that is my Corkboard, there are many things that I have been doing on a regular basis.  I still have stuff (love that word, applies to so much) that I need to add.  But best of all I am getting into a better routine.

Don’t know about you, but one of the things I’ve been very remiss about is backing up my blogs, especially the Blogger and WordPress.com ones.  You know, you start working on something and think, I’ll do that later, then later so much more interesting stuff has come and gone that the simple little thing like backing up is forgotten and then before you know it the day is over and the procrastination begins, “I’ll do that first thing tomorrow”.

You know what happens with tomorrow, it’s always there, just over there but we are always getting to it but never making it.

We get pulled back into making tomorrow today when we try logging into a Blogger or WordPress.com blog, that we have been happily feeding off for a main site, and oops!, it ain’t there, been deleted for some unknown reason and the reason can stay unkown too, you see, we don’t have control, we have been using the free blog platforms.

What we do have control over is, backing up that free blog by using the easy to use, Export feature.  Both Blogger and WordPress.com have this option and it is so easy and quick to do.

The posts and comments on your Blogger blog can be exported and saved to your computer, the file is an XML file and can be imported into another Blogger blog or any other blogging platform that supports that type of file.

I’ve just been through the paces with Blogger and this is what you do.

In your Blogger blog dashboard, go to ‘Settings’ and then ‘Basic’ and you will see the option the Import, Export or Delete the blog.

To save your blog, select Export Blog, you will then be presented with the option to Download Blog, click on that and your blog will be saved to your computer, file it in a safe place.

When you want to import the posts and comments into another Blogger blog, then all you need to do is go to Settings, Basics, Import Blog.

Select an exported blog by using the browse option, enter the Captcha, tick the Automatically publish all imported posts and then click on Import Blog.

Even if you have posts already on this new blog, the imported posts will be merged in with them.

WordPress.com is similar, same type of file, an XML.  You will find the export and import options under Tools.

Make sure you select “All Authors” if you want everything saved.

All the posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags.

This works for your own hosted WordPress blogs, that is the WordPress.org blogs/sites.

The export and import option is an easier way to transfer a WordPress blog/site site from one hosting account to another.

To do this you simply set up a new WordPress blog using your Cpanel Fantastico.  If it is a .org blog to a .org blog, then install the same theme and plugins, activate the plugins before you import the XML file.

Set your permalinks the same as the original blog, this is very important, actually this is the first thing I do after installing a WP.org blog.  Configure the new installation how you want it .  If you have used Widgets for your sidebar on the original blog then set these up too.

Now click on the Import option under tools.

As you can see there are several options for importing, not just the WordPress.  Select the platform, this would be WordPress in this case and import the file.

All your posts, pages, categories, tags etc will now be installed on your new blog on your new web host.  This is so much easier than the other way.

There is only one snag, the maximun file size is 15MB, so if you have a big, big blog then you will probably need to transfer the other way.  I’ll go into that another day.

You’re welcome to download my Back Up Your Blogs PDF, just click the Smashy download icon