The 3 Blog Laws Of Self Hosting (Ignore Them At Your Own Risk)
Written by Darnell Clayton in
30 Comments
Despite the benefits of blogging upon Blogger, WordPress.com, OnSugar (for Drupal lovers), Â or a microblogging site like Tumblr, there comes a season in your life when you must embrace the trials and tribulations of self hosting your blog.
Fortunately in the age of social networking and blogs, most hosting companies offer clients “one click” installs allowing users to upload the blog software of their choice without having to resort to using the infamous FTP (which only geeks love).
Aside from finding yourself a decent host, there are 3 laws of self hosting that you should follow which will not only prevent damage to your blog’s data (as replacing it via Google cache can be a pain), but also of your wallet as well.
Upgrade Early And Upgrade Often
It doesn’t matter whether you are a WordPress high priest, a Movabltetype Monk, or a disciple of the way of Drupal.
You need to upgrade your blog as soon as possible (no later than a month after a new release) to prevent your blog from being a haven of hackers.
Despite the pain of upgrading (which can sometimes break themes, widgets, plugins, etc.), it is easier to mend a blogs appearance or even a background feature than one that has been hacked.
Backup Thy Blog
Nowadays it isn’t enough to find a good hosting company. Once you choose the route of self hosting, you (and not the hosting company) are responsible for backing up the data on your blog (and no your laptop doesn’t count).
Before you rush out to choose a “second hosting company” to secure your data, you should do a little research to verify that the company doesn’t have data caps, as well as whether that company is profitable as you don’t want them selling your data due to bankruptcy.
For those of you who embrace the way of WordPress, you should seriously consider using VaultPress to back up your blog. Bloggers utilizing Drupal, Movabletype or other software should consider using Amazon S3 services (or another large company) to back up their blog.
Avoid The Bandwidth Blues By Out Sourcing Media
Even though there are many blog companies offering unlimited bandwidth, truth be told there is always a “fair use” policy which in reality means their is a limit to how much bandwidth your blog can really use.
Unless your blog is receiving a large amount of traffic, Â most bloggers will probably not encounter the bandwidth police unless they host their own videos and podcasts.
Using a third party service (such as YouTube, VideoPress, Odeo, etc.) can not only help you maintain favor with your blog host, but also maintain your hosting bill within reasonable limits.
Any Other Suggestions?
For those of you who self host your blogs, what other tips would you recommend for those new to the world of servers, plugins and bandwidth? Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comment section below!
Great post. Very helpful to an amateur like me. I’m currently looking for a good domain name, and then will self-host using WordPress. Definitely going to save this post to http://delicious.com/tomjamieson
Very interesting article above. Even the blog I like very much, I will return to the blog to read news. Good luck still!
Very good tips! I’m a WordPress blogger – and have all of my clients on WordPress self hosted sites as well – so definitely need to set up a system to make sure that all blogs are backed up and updated.
Thanks for the tips!
This is a really great article and discussion. There are a lot of people who are doing this and they should be aware of the things to remember. They should not only remember it but they should “put it in mind” because these aspects of blogging and hosting is really critical especially if you will forget something. Good thing there are articles like this because people will be aware of things that they often forget. It is not a simple task especially when it comes to maintenance so people should start following the steps mentioned above to avoid having problems in the future especially in blogging.
This is a great article! Thanks for sharing!
Alex
Absolutely spot on tips! It never ceases to amaze me how many bloggers don’t update their software, ever! And anyone who is not backing up their blogs is playing with fire. Bad things can and do happen and if you aren’t backed up on a third party system – you’re gonna hurt big time when the bad Karma finds you!
God points. I must admit, I never have been a fan of using blogger, you just can’t really customize it to what you really want.
With regards to backing up, I have only just started to do it. I just got scared when updating wordpress, all these what ifs started springing to mind.
Kind regards
Simon
My tip would be to get a fast enough hosting package. If you notice it’s taking several seconds for your site to finish loading then it’s not fast enough and it’s time for an upgrade.
WordPress is a resource hog, always has been. Some plugins make this worse. To see if a faster hosting package is necessary, disable all plugins and slowly activate one at a time and test reloading your site (in FireFox remember to press control while clicking the reload button to clear the cache). It could be a plug in causing your slow down.
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Hello, i pretty new in the land of blogging, seo,… and i don’t really understand what do you mean by “update the blog” and “back up your blog”. What exactly do i need to do ?
Thank you and sorry for my lazy question
Thanks for the tips! I´ve recently started my blog and this information is very useful for me. I´ll definitely come back for more feedback!
Regards,
Sandra
I have taken good note of these tips.
I am planing to start a blog very soon, and these advices are great for me.
Thanks for the tips.
I am having some trouble with contents. I do not see my visits growing.
Sobre todo si con el blog generamos dinero, y es una de nuestras fuentes principales de ingresos, creo que seria muy necesaria asegurar nuestro blog contra posibles ataques de hackers.
Thank you very much for their councils in this article, narrow slope to receive more information to my mail.
Thanks
Harold
Ask your hosting provider if they provide backups. Many do it automatically or offer a package for a little extra per month. Amazon also has great backup plans with their s3 product.
WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are great, but they have security bugs that come out often, so make sure your hosting provider is running updates for you frequently.
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It really is essential to update the wordpress software and although I have had many problems in updating the database due to incompatibility, but as you say is not to attract, are things that can be arranged
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Pretty nice post.. I must admit, I never have been a fan of using blogger, you just can’t really customize it to what you really want.
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