HTML Blogging: Keeping Backups
Posted on August 5, 2024 by Aywren
When running your own static HTML site, it’s important to keep backups of your files. Depending on the host that you use, it may be up to you to keep a copy of your site on your computer and/or an external storage device (I suggest both). Even if your host does make automatic backups, it’s still best to save an archive for yourself.
You can do this several ways.
Code New Changes on Your PC
One way is to do all your coding and site design using an HTML editor on your computer. I do this for my Wayrift webcomic site. I only update a handful of pages each week for this site, so it works well to use an editor (I use the free program Brackets) to do all the coding. Then, when Friday rolls around, I just upload the handful of files to Neocities to make my update.
This effectively means I always have a copy of the newest files already on my PC, with no need to download or backup anything. This is probably the smartest way of doing this since you don’t need to remember what’s been changed on the server and transfer it back to your PC later.
Use a Transfer Program
All of my other HTML sites I code directly on the Neocities web interface. My other sites are far more folder-based (folders within folders), and until recently, Neocities didn’t allow you to move a structured folder of files to the server at one time. Because I was always changing numerous files and needed many folders, I just coded directly to the web interface.
Neocities now supports folder structure uploads, but habits are hard to break. So, I keep coding directly on the web interface just because that’s comfortable.
In order to ensure I have a local back up, every Saturday I spend some time with a free transfer client called Cyberduck. Unlike some hosts I’ve used in the past, Neocities uses a protocol called WebDAV (rather than FTP). The Cyberduck client allows for WebDAV, and was recommended by Neocities, so I’ve been using that the past 2 years.
It’s a pretty simple program to use. I just select the files and folders I’ve updated recently, and set it to transfer to my backup folder on my PC. Of course, this can take some time if there’s lots of files to move, but seeing that HTML and image files are fairly small, it’s usually about 10-15 minutes for everything to complete.
From time to time, I then move a backup of the PC content to an external hard drive just for extra safe keeping. The way I’ve coded and organized my files ensures that as long as I keep them in this specific folder organization, the files will work locally as if I were viewing them through a web browser.
Also, this is what I mean when I say that all I’d have to do is drop my files into a web host – any web host – and my web site would be fully functional. There’s a lot of peace of mind in knowing I have several local backups of the blog I’ve written over the past 10 years, which is one of the big perks of developing a site using HTML like I do.
Even if you run a site on WordPress or a third-party host, be sure to do what you can to back up your blog content from time to time. I know that WordPress in particular has both a content and image export you can use, so take advantage of it!