I was driving back from a job in London today and got into thinking a bit deeper about URL’s, blogging and backups.
You may or may not know that I have a backup blog hosted on blogger.com with the address of:
s1m0nh.blogspot.com
Let’s look at that address for a minute. Firstly, it’s tied to a particular service, blogger.com. If I need to move it somewhere else, the whole address will of course have to change:
simonh.at-somewhere-else.com1
So now, all the old links don’t work, which is not cool. Secondly, neither URL really describes what the address is about. One may be able to figure it out, but I think we can do better!
Today I bought mybackup.blog. My first user is me (of course). My new backup blog URL will forevermore be:
simonh.mybackup.blog
Which is only one character longer than the old one.
No more “I wonder where this link will take me?” questions. It’s all there in the URL. And that subdomain can point to any service, now and in the future.
- tomsmith.mybackup.blog
- bobscameras.mybackup.blog
- someothertopic.mybackup.blog
- etc.
Why Would I Want a “Backup” Blog?
I’m using the following definition:
one that serves as a substitute or support
- I brought an extra pencil for backup.
- a backup plan.
Not as a backup / copy of your main blog!
With that out of the way, you may still be wondering why a backup blog is a good idea. Well, a few reasons spring to mind…
In case something happens to your regular blog
Outages happen. Companies shut up shop. Things go wrong on our servers. There are many reasons why your main blog might go dark for a time. If it does, you have another channel for your readers to stay updated.
As a drafting / note taking tool
I’ve previously written about using Blogger.com for just this purpose. You can use your backup blog as a notepad. Just save everything as a draft, then move to your main blog when you’re ready. This is probably of particular interest to users of static site generators (such as me). As great as they are, you can’t really use one without being at your computer as commands need to be run in a terminal.
Publish different content to your regular blog
Another option is to have your backup blog as a place to post content that maybe doesn’t fit with your main blog. You could also publish different styles of posts (longer or shorter than usual).
Why “mybackup.blog”?
I thought it important to have .blog as the domain extension. After all, this is a backup blog. Sadly, backup.blog was premium (~£1800 for the first year)! Another one I wanted was planb.blog. Already taken!
Your Thoughts?
Would you be interested in using a subdomain of mybackup.blog? If so, I’ll set a few up completely free.
you.mybackup.blog
Do you think it fair to charge about a quid or two per year for such a service? I’m only interested in covering the price of the domain, plus the few minutes to set each one up until I automate it.
Anyway, it’s been a very long day, so I’m hitting the hay. More to follow…
Footnotes
1 I only have the stupid s1m0nh when simonh has been taken
Updates
2025-01-22: Add Why Would I Want a “Backup” Blog? and Why “mybackup.blog”? sections
