So your blog site or hosting provider suffers an outage that lasts more than a few hours. What do you do to make sure your blogging time is as efficient as possible so that you can hit the ground running when your site comes back up?

In my case because my outage was caused by a Denial of Service attack that spanned several days I didn’t want to deliberately promote or encourage people to visit my sites, as this would cause them to hit page cannot be displayed, or time out errors from my blogs having outages. CommentLuv couldn’t contact my blogs to even display the latest feed article due to the outage, so it made commenting and leaving backlinks something that wouldn’t have been as productive.

Instead I turned to focusing on writing articles, using good old fashioned Textpad and just writing and writing, with the intention to just queue all the articles when my blogs came back online. I also used the time to publish a few haiku’s on associated content and write a guest article for some other sites. The bottom line is, even when your site is unavailable you can use the time to still be productive for your site.

Here are some top things you can do to still be productive with your site while under an outage (besides just writing as many articles as possible to queue for later).

  • Network and build influence on Twitter by taking some time to friend people in like categories, be interactive and promote other peoples articles instead of your own for a little while.
  • Repeat the above with any other Social Network like BlogCatalog, Plurk, Friendster, Digg, BlogEngage…etc.
  • Read up on some of the latest articles submitted to BlogEngage or Twittley, and tweet, vote and promote those articles if you found them good and interesting.
  • Tune some of your browser bookmarks or build a new favorites list of blogs you visit often and can easily access and visit by opening all links in the same folder.

What are some of your tips on being productive for your blog, when your blog is down or inaccessible?

-Dragon Blogger

If you enjoyed reading this post, then please remember to post a comment, Subscribe to my RSS feed and vote for me at FuelMyBlog


Protected by Copyscape Plagiarism Check Software

Related posts:

  1. Free Traffic For Brand New Blog
  2. I’ve become a member of Blog Engage
  3. Engaging Blog Reader Participation
  4. Blogging Tip: Save Drafts for a Rainy Day
  5. Blog Engage Closes It’s Registrations and Becomes Invite Only!

Written by DragonBlogger (5) Published Articles

An Information Security Engineer by day who writes about software, blogging, technology and entertainment on the side.

Follow DragonBlogger on Twitter @dragonblogger

13 Responses to “Being Productive When Your Blog Site is Down”
  1. Karen
    Twitter: Blazing_Minds
    (1085 comments)
    says:

    Thanks Justin, for another superb Guest Post ;)
    Karen is hoping you stop by and read Having Fun with HashTags on Twitter My ComLuv Profile

    [Reply]

  2. Ileane
    Twitter: Ileane
    (68 comments)
    says:

    Hi Dragon Blogger,
    I often have down time due to a miserable Verizon Internet connection. In my down time I watch some of the tutorials that I have downloaded on iTunes. I subscribe to a few that are related to podcasting and it’s a great time to catch up. I found a good one that covers WordPress and podcasting called http://teachmewp.com.

    I have a book that I need to read (although I admit that it put me to sleep yesterday) ;-)
    Thanks for the writing tips.
    Ileane is hoping you stop by and read Branding The Podcast Blog My ComLuv Profile

    [Reply]

    DragonBlogger
    Twitter: dragonblogger
    (13 comments)
    Reply:

    Very nice Ileane, I was busy adding a new “Author Box” on dragonblogger.com yesterday, what do you think? Does it look nice?
    DragonBlogger is hoping you stop by and read Dealing with Denial of Service Attack on HostMonster My ComLuv Profile

    [Reply]

    Karen
    Twitter: Blazing_Minds
    (1085 comments)
    Reply:

    The author box looks very nice indeed ;)

    [Reply]

  3. Anne Moss
    Twitter: israelimom
    (1 comments)
    says:

    I hate DDOS attacks. They’re the worst kind – especially if it’s your dedicated server.

    As for what to do – as long as there’s an internet connection, there is so much to do! You’ve named most of them. I would just add forums. When I get the time, I visit Webmasters World, Sitepoint and A Best Web.
    Anne Moss is hoping you stop by and read January 2010 Post Roundup My ComLuv Profile

    [Reply]

    DragonBlogger
    Twitter: dragonblogger
    (13 comments)
    Reply:

    That is one thing I haven’t really done, I don’t really join or do anything with forums for promotion. I just cant ever find the time.
    DragonBlogger is hoping you stop by and read Dealing with Denial of Service Attack on HostMonster My ComLuv Profile

    [Reply]

  4. gautam hans
    Twitter: virtuosoblogger
    (19 comments)
    says:

    I use most of my uun productive time in reading blogs for inspiration.
    Next i use it for gathering new blog post ideas and if i am really free, then i gather of list of resources for my post.
    gautam hans is hoping you stop by and read How to boost your pageviews My ComLuv Profile

    [Reply]

  5. Extreme John
    Twitter: extremejohn
    (165 comments)
    says:

    Great guest post, certainly know it’s being told by someone that’s had a first hand experience.
    Extreme John is hoping you stop by and read What is One Thing You HATE about this Place? My ComLuv Profile

    [Reply]

  6. john
    Twitter: catalinadrian
    (99 comments)
    says:

    Excellent tips. When my internet connection is down (down like I can’t access the Internet at all) I also dedicate the time to write some articles in order to use them later when my internet connection is up again.

    [Reply]

  7. Dana from Online Knowledge
    Twitter: danalingga
    (12 comments)
    says:

    I usually create a ton of article if my blog is down.
    Dana @ Online Knowledge is hoping you stop by and read Easy Way to Put Social Media Button in Blog My ComLuv Profile

    [Reply]

  8. [...] answer to that is – Please see #4 because you missed it the first time. Or what you can do the next time your site goes down (trust me it will go down) is sign up for a WordPress.com blog. I’m here waiting to help if [...]

  9. Selurus (1 comments) says:

    I generally just visit some other sites, or try to catch up on my reading.
    I like your suggestion too, I’ve got to arrange my bookmarks, haven’t done that yet.

    [Reply]

  10. Dragon Blogger
    Twitter: dragonblogger
    (38 comments)
    says:

    Organizing bookmarks is a huge pain for me, I do use a plug-in so that my firefox on all my machines sync the same bookmarks in case I ever have to uninstall and rebuild firefox.
    Dragon Blogger is hoping you stop by and read Choosing Wordpress.com or Self Hosted Wordpress Blog My ComLuv Profile

    [Reply]

  11.  
Leave a Reply


Comment Policy in force from 15 Jan 2009

Please be aware that all comments made are moderated and SPAM will not be tolerated, make sure you use your real name or your blogging name, you can also utilise KeywordLove, if we deem a comment to be SPAM then it will be edited or deleted! SPAMMERS are not welcome here!

Editors have the right to moderate or delete any comment they choose.

CommentLuv Enabled

This site uses KeywordLuv. Enter YourName@YourKeywords in the Name field to take advantage.

Spam Protection by WP-SpamFree