Posted on October 8, 2006 - by John

10 things you should do to protect your blog

1. Backup, Backup & Backup. - Wait I will go back and put that in ‘bold’, many people say "I never do it, its up to the host - right?" WRONG, it is up to you, it is you’re blog, always have a backup. You need to be responsible for your blog, so try to backup once a week, if you have allot of content, otherwise, devise a backup schedule and stick to it. Use the new Google Calendar, if you don’t have an calendar application on your PC, or the good old’ pin and paper’ is a good alternative.
2. Always wear SPAM protection. Wordpress users are blessed with Akismet, which protects your comments against spam "Automattic Kismet (Akismet for short) is a collaborative effort to make comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blogging, so you never have to worry about spam again." However, there is additional defenses you can use, for all the various platforms. Try a simple Google search, or visit the official website for your chosen platform.
3. Copyright your content. Always state your policy on the copyright of your posts, this will protect you and any content you may use  in your posts. Check out creativecommons.org "Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators. We have built upon the "all rights reserved" concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary "some rights reserved" approach. We’re a nonprofit organization. All of our tools are free."
   
4. Your Password: Remember your username and password to your blogging platform are like a set of keys, would you leave your keys in your car? A safe bet is to use a combination of numbers and letters with at least one uppercase letter.
5. What version are you using? There are always and will always be updates to the software that runs on your blog, keep up to date with the version you are using. This will help keep you safe from exploits which may be utilized by possible hackers.
6. Use "quote marks", this comes back to point three. If you are quoting somebody, or an even an article, always quote them, and cite the where you found the original content, not only is this a courtesy mark, but it is also necessary to let readers, and the original source, know, that you are respecting the fact that they wrote this piece and you are using it as a part of making a point, or reference.
7. Protect your self, I was going to leave this point until number 10, but from a personal experience, let me just say it again folks PROTECT YOURSELF. And I am not talking about protecting your online identity or whatever (that’s an issue for another day). Take a break, allow yourself time away from your blog. This will help with the creative juices , and may even prevent you from getting tired from your blog, and help keep your content fresh.
8. Host: Make sure your host is suitable for your blog needs, most good hosts offer a regular backup service, and outside business hours support. This is essential. Even high profile blogger’s experience problems with their blogs, and when you have a good host there to help in your time of need, its a relief indeed ( perhaps that’s an understatement)
9. Protect your domain, make sure that your domain registration does not lapse.  Many blogger’s register their domain for 10 years (this seems to help with SEO)
10. Be Ready: If one of your posts becomes popular, or is ‘Dugg’, you may suddenly have allot of traffic, make sure you have the option to increase bandwidth if necessary.

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