This post, Avoid a crisis… Back up your blog TODAY!, reminded me of something very important. Having a backup of your blog database. As mentioned in that post, you might be wanting to try a new theme or plugin, or you may be upgrading to the newest version of your blogging software.
I knew several bloggers who lost their blogs when they didn’t do as instructed and back up their databases before upgrading WordPress. There are occasions in which for whatever reason, be it server limitations or just odd foul ups, your upgrade borks your WordPress database and there goes your blog and all your hard work. Well, backing it up is the key to not losing everything.
If you don’t want to use the plugin mention in the above article, you can also back up your database through your control panel and PHPMyAdmin, or whatever your server uses. But if you don’t know how to do that, then you’ll probably want to just use the plugin. I generally use PHPMyAdmin, but that’s just my preference. I try to back up my databases at least once per week. I always back them up before I upgrade WordPress. I have too much value stored in my blogs to lose them all to a borked upgrade.
My advice? Back up your blogs. I realize this may not be possible if you have livejournal, deadjournal, Blogger, Vox, or other blogs of that type, but if you have your own self-hosted blogging software blog, back it up!
