Backup Your Blog – New Feature Added

By | April 13, 2017

back upI just had a scare. Dividend Portfolio went down for a few hours. I was totally freaked out. But the experience has taught me the importance of having a backup. This is why I’m suggesting that if you’re not doing this, you should backup your blog. Here’s what happened.

I visited Captain Dividend’s blog and liked a feature on his site called his “My Blog List”. Basically, he has a section where a post gets automatically published on his site when one of his favorite bloggers make a post.  I really liked that feature and wanted to incorporate it into this site. So, before I go on, I want to give a HUGE thank you to Captain Dividend for the inspiration. I’ve seen this feature on other sides, but decided to give it a try based on Captain Dividend’s blog.

Anyway, I finally was able to figure out how to do it. For all you techies out there, it’s called an RSS feed. I even got the site looking like I wanted to. Quite frankly, in addition to the plugin I used, I also had to purchase an add-on for that plugin. It’s almost as if I was using two separate plugins, but really, one was just an add-on. The problem was that I noticed after installing the plugin, that the plugin I used for SEO was not working properly. Now, that could have been simply a bug in the most recent update, which also happened to be that same day. Or, as I thought, it could have been that it was incompatible with the new plugin I installed.  So, I went to test out my theory.

First I deactivated the add-on and was still having the same problem. I then reactivated the add-on and tried other trouble shooting techniques, such as deactivating and reactivating the SEO plugin, to no avail. Then it dawned on me that I should just deactivate the plugin that was providing me the feeds of my favorite blog sites. When I did that, almost immediately, I could no longer access the dashboard of my site. I couldn’t even access the admin section to log back in. I was freaking out. The error message said something to the effect of http error 500.

Needless to say, I never expected that I wouldn’t be able to access the admin section of my blog because of a plugin. All I had to do was call the hosting company. Thankfully, they were able to restore my blog. They were able to de-activate the plug in. The reason for the site blackout (which I totally guessed) was that because I deactivated the main plugin, without deactivating the add-on, the add-on plugin was trying to work, but couldn’t and that caused the error. The site was down for a few hours because right after it happened, I didn’t have the opportunity to call the hosting company for a few hours due to my work schedule.

The representative said that even though they keep a backup, I should have my own backup of the site, and he told me which plugin was his favorite to do the backup. He suggested UpdraftPlus. Well, after reading up about it some more, I decided to backup my site for the first time since the website’s creation. Now, I have regular backups scheduled to a server different than one where the site is being hosted. My message to you is simple:  Backup Your Blog.

Once Again – Backup Your Blog

I’m just sharing this story for all of my fellow bloggers out there. Clearly, I’m still very new to blogging and to dividend growth investing. So, maybe I’m suggesting something that is otherwise common place. But, if you have a blog or website, I suggest that you make sure that you backup your blog on a regular basis  This is my first site. I’ve tried before to have a website, and didn’t really find anything that I was passionate about. With this blog, I was slowly but surely able to learn how to make a blog and be a part of a niche community if you will. Although I would have started over from scratch, I would have been devastated. A lot of work went into the creation of this blog. To lose it all because of one silly mistake would have been highly discouraging. Actually, this is why you shouldn’t have all your retirement savings in a single stock. As the saying goes, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

That being said, I don’t want to end on a sour note. I’m actually glad it happened. Now I know that if anything ever happened to this site, I have a backup. It was a learning moment and I definitely learned the lesson. I’m just very glad it wasn’t a more expensive and devastating lesson.

Problem Solved – New Feature Added to Dividend Portfolio

So, whatever my hosting company did, it solved the problem. All I had to do was reactivate the RSS plugin that was already installed and the add-on for it. At each step of the process, I created a test post (unpublished) and noticed that my SEO plugin was working perfectly. So I reactivated the main RSS plugin, created test post, and everything was ok. Then I reactivated the add-on and created another test post and everything was ok. I still couldn’t enter the license key for the add-on in WordPress, but I was able to activate it on the admin page of the add-on website. Then, I created a test post, and everything was still ok.

The result is that I now have the “Favorite Blogs – Recent Posting” section of the site. It lists the top 5 recent postings of my favorite blogs. And, I still get to use my SEO plugin like before. As you can see, the postings move up about every 5 seconds. I’m trying to decide if I like the movement of those recent posts, versus a static display that lists the top 5 from most recent posting. I’d rather have that problem, than trying to figure out how to restore my entire website!!!

Conclusion

Once again, a BIG thank you to Captain Dividend for the inspiration to do this. Granted, I was probably cursing his name for a few hours, but all is well that ends well. If you have a blog and you’re reading this, I strongly encourage you to back up your blog. In the mean time, tell me what you think of the new feature to the site. Should I make it a static display or keep the movement going? Finally, let me know if the site takes a longer time to load up because of the addition of this new feature.

Thanks for stopping by.

18 thoughts on “Backup Your Blog – New Feature Added

  1. Troy @ Market History

    I’m thinking of using WordPress’ Vaultpress to backup my blog as well. Mine went down for half a day the other day, and I was worried that someone had hacked into the site.

    Reply
    1. Dividend Portfolio Post author

      It’s definitely a scary feeling. Regardless of what you use, I think you should backup your site, just in case.

      Reply
        1. Dividend Portfolio Post author

          Not a bad point Troy. The plugin allows you to do manual backup. I prefer to back up automatically because I don’t have to worry about remembering to do it. So, if two years from now I have a problem with the site, then I will have access to the most recent backup. But, not everyone prefers automatic backups but the plugin gives you the option either way.

          Reply
  2. Scott

    Dividend Portfolio,

    Excellent post! I haven’t had a problem with my blog yet (knock on wood), but have been religiously backing up my blog just in case for a couple years now with the Updraftplus plugin (free version). I have it being saved to my Dropbox account just in case something happens to my server that hosts my WordPress.

    Love the idea for the RSS feed too. I use WP RSS Aggregator, which you can see along the left side of my site. Which one do you use? I like your color scheme a bit more then mine…it highlights the individual posts a bit more. Unfortunately I haven’t found an RSS feed plugin that looks as good as the blogspot (blogger) version that Captain Dividend uses.

    Scott

    Reply
    1. Dividend Portfolio Post author

      Hey Scott,

      I also used the WP RSS Aggregator, which was free, but I got the Widget add-on, which I had to pay for. Misusing both caused me the glitch which resulted in me having to backup my site. The correct use of both is the result of what you’re seeing now. I’m glad you like the color scheme. Do you like the fact that the posts scroll up or do you think static display is preferable?

      I checked out your site. It definitely looks cool. The only reason I got the widget add-on for WP RSS Aggregator was so that I could use it on the right side of the blog.

      Thanks for stopping by.

      Reply
      1. Scott

        I like the scrolling as well. The only thing that I would change would be to display more postings at a single time. I might implement scrolling and a some color to my WP RSS Aggregator postings as well. Are those options settings on the plugin or something you figured out yourself by playing around with the CSS?

        Scott

        Reply
        1. Dividend Portfolio Post author

          Those are options in the plugins. I didn’t want to make the list too long. But will definitely take your view into consideration. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

          Reply
  3. DivHut

    Great post. I had a similar experience with a plugin update I did a while back. While WordPress is amazing and all those plugins for everything you can imagine are amazing too, sometimes updates or new installs can mess things up big time. Like you, a plugin I used brought down my whole site. Had to call my hosting and they were able to remove the plugin and restore my site. Backing up is always a good idea!

    Reply
    1. Dividend Portfolio Post author

      Yea, I think because of what happened I lost my rankings in google. Hopefully I don’t have to wait another year to get it back. In any case, I’m glad I was able to get the site back. Better than starting from scratch.

      Reply
  4. Dividend Daze

    At the end of the day, your right in saying it needs to happen to everyone at least once for the learning experience. Makes it easier to handle if it happens again. Granted I have an IT background so I have been backing mine up since before I even launched in the first place. Backup Guard is really nice to use. And I think either WordPress itself or Jetpack has their own backup system. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
    1. Dividend Portfolio Post author

      Yea, it’s just so devastating to know that all the hard work we put into creating and updating these blogs could just be wiped out by a mistake or the like. Having a backup, regardless of what system is used, not just gives peace of mind, but is essential if you’re a blogger.

      Reply
  5. Dividend Diplomats

    I think every blogger has gone through one of these scares. We had one in January and luckily the damage was minimal. Serves as a great reminder and is something that you usually don’t think about until you need it most.

    Bert

    Reply
    1. Dividend Portfolio Post author

      Yea. Things could have been much worse. As they say, prevention is better than the cure.

      Thanks Bert.

      Reply
  6. Tania

    That is a sickening feeling that hits the pit of your stomach! Glad you got it sorted though.

    Reply
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