The word “paranoid” is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as

“exhibiting unnecessary or extreme fear; characterized by unreasonable or excessive suspicion of others.”

Well, you know the old joke: Just because you're paranoid i doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you!

In a similar sort of way, I don’t think there is anything “unreasonable” in being paranoid about losing the content on your website.

Think about it. A technical glitch could erase the whole lot, and if your web hosting company can’t provide a backup, you’re in trouble.

Or what if the company is taken over by another one, or decides to change the service they offer? I missed (or wasn’t sent) an email from a company where I was maintaining a blog in the form of book reviews. They got rid of their blog service, and the reviews I’d posted disappeared into the trash can of history. Not a pleasant experience, I can assure you.

So these days I try to take backups of my stuff posted online. In a short series of posts I’ll share what I’ve found to work.

The topics I’ll be covering include: