A Very Painful & Tragic Incident for Snaphow Blog…
Well, I don’t know how to start this post. But I think it will be better If I write in points… As you know Snaphow was down for a week (since 19th oct–25th oct). I wasn’t able to post anything for the past week and whole of snaphow face 100% downtime.
What Happened ? Why were we Down ?
As you may know, I shifted from blogger to WordPress because of the advantages of using wordpress and hosted my blog at Dreamhost which is no doubt quite good as shared hosting. All the databases were maintained at GreenLantern server.
GreenLantern’s Curse : On October 18th, 2009 at 5:05 am IST, All Sites & Blogs Hosted on Greenlantern server went down and stayed like that. After an hour Dreamhost’s status Blog notified that GreenLantern Server had some hardware problems.
After that I contacted support several times, and even they were not able to resolve the issue not provide any solution. Lastly I got an update which I thought would provide some hope… BUT… (see below)
In simple words All the data of the blog was lost. This was almost like heartstopper for me.
How was I affected ?
I lost around 900 posts 3000+ comments in a snap. - I lost all the Google search engine Rankings for my Posts. (Maybe because for the constant 404 error for a week.)
- I lost the adsense, infolinks revenue for the past week and some direct advertising money for this month. (I don’t care much)
- I felt terrible for that week.
- I am expecting a page rank drop … because my permalinks are broken.
Was I to Blame ? Yes Definitely….
Generally, in these cases I would have liked to blame DreamHost…
But I realized, this was a server hardware related problem, thats why they lost backup data so they had noting to do… I was the Stupid, because,
- I didn’t backup my database.
- I didn’t backup my theme files, Images etc using FTP.
- I trusted too much on a hosting company with my files.
- I was ignorant of these type of Downtime, data loss Issues.
What I Tried my Best to Do
Thank God that there was a backup of my blog’s database in their servers. But that wasn’t enough to bring back the blog. I tried my best and re-installed WordPress with the previous configuration.
Luckily I found most of the posts & comments still there. Although everything was broken since the Images were no longer available & permalinks and other link structure was destroyed as I couldn’t recover the categories.
I got some posts 7 comments back (without the images) which you might see if you look around. Ya but they had already lost the permalinks that was indexed in google.
So, What Next ?
Well its clear to me that I have to start from zero once again.
Have I been disheartened, sad etc ? Should I quit (as suggested by a friend) ? HELL NOOOOO………….
I have always heard "Winners Never Quit and Quitters Never Win". And I want to be on the winning side…
So This time I have promised myself to write better & well written posts,and this time I have some good ideas on what to write.
My Advice …
There is enough to learn from my mistakes…. In short make sure you BACKUP … Or Switch to a better & trustworthy Host. Also you should have full information of these data loss issues, restoring your WordPress site using previous database and what to do else … so that you lose less and gain more.
My Request…
Your Comments are those things for which I frequently refresh my comment moderation page. Plz contribute any thought, tip, suggestion, rectification etc in your comments…
Follow Snaphow on Facebook.
Thats so sad debo. i was checking snaphow everyday and i was thinking what went wrong with debo, snaphow is down from one week and he is not doing anything. Thank God snaphow is back. Don’t worry Debo everything will be back again. Snaphow will soon gets to the page rank it has.
That is very sad thing happened to your blog ,and what ever happens ,happens for good and you still have many loyal followers and i know you will bounce back with more enthusiasm and zeal .. wish you luck and go for a much higher and reliable host and take your time for deciding it and also this is your real opportunity to take some professional help for New design.
I too feel very sad about this. You was one of the best bloggers i liked. But what ever happen you should never quit. I too faced some thing like his long before. I accidentally deleted my computingunleashed blog and i didn’t had and backup of it. But i started restoring those posts from google cache and some i reposted again. Things like this can happen.
If you can come up to here then there is no doubt that you will reach height far beyond where you are now.
We all bloggers are with you. Dont worry. Try keep working. Good Luck.
Feel so sorry for you! I wonder why you did not keep any back up! Dreamhost is considered a good host but you can’t claim anything [you're also at fault for not backing up! You are giving tech suggestions here so that is a big crime on your part!]. I am doing my research on web hosts [even wrote an article on it on my blog] and am so wary of moving to self-hosting [mainly due to this reason] and want to just domain forward on wordpress only!
All the best. Good you are not quitting. You can leave links to this article in popular tech sites so that people know about it!
Thanks, friend you are always guru in my blogging career. This is really a good information for blogger newbies………..i got a lot from you. wish this happen never again…………..
Ouch. That must have hurt!! But yes, thank you for the reminder to always, always back up!
any chance google’s cache or wayback machine has any of your old backups?
its very sad….. dont quit keep working you will rock again !!
@ Max – Ya around 100 are there in google cache…. but it will be very tedious to work on each post one by one…
This happened with me few days back, but the hosting company was having my backup. So i cam back within a day. We are with debajyoti “Don’t Worry”.
taking backup of your website at regular interval is very imp.why you lost the permalinks structure i dont understand?if you had restored the wordpress permalinks will be intact
Sorry to hear about your troubles, but glad you are back.
This just reinforces the advice to backup, and backup frequently yourself, and not to rely on the hosting company.
Really heartbreaking ! Losing months of hard work and Google ranks is not a Joke ……. But you can recover the images from Google cache and Your URL links from Google webmaster tools logs.
And yes, Dreamhost sucks ! I had faced such problems when i started out on an Indian Hosting company a year back. Now i am happy with Doreo.
Don’t get disappointed ! God has a Plan and you will Win for sure !
@ Zeesu – I wasn’t able to get back the categories … But Anyways they got Fixed after Using “Dean’s Migration Plugin”. But that uses 301 Redirection … So It might break the Link structure for that page rank
I checked the cache…. I don’t think google saves the images. BTW, Thanks for your Comments… “God has a Plan” is Interesting…As I believe everything happens for a reasons….
bro….u scared me…me too using dreamhost and been into this blogging stuff for over 3 years now….m backing things up right away….
its disheartening to know that, but I wonder why, I was also on Greenlantern server too but Dreamhost was able to put my files back up last night… http://www.ljdiaz.com/ljdiaz-com-is-back-after-greenlantern-server-outage/2009/10/28/
I just wished everyone got their files back since its very hard to start from square one…
Sad to know about it. This is also a warning for others. But what I liked about you is your strong spirits. This will certainly help you to attain more and even better. All the best.
Thanks John …
Even I faced a similar issue a few days back! And even i hadn’t backed-up my database. But it is fine now! Good luck for your too in future!
How did you get back your posts …. I guess your hosting comp. didn’t lose your files ???
omg, was shocked to read abt it……. dnt worry mate, as told every happends for a good reasons. You continue blogging and we are there to help you in every way we can…… Happy Blogging
Thanks…. Was happy to hear from you after a long time….
Yea, came online after a long time….
This is a very painful experience. As for me, I am also a noob in term of servers, etc. so from the very first start, I hired a web developer to do the hosting for me. As her client, she also do the back up for me.
This is really painful experience.There is a sentence like “One experience is worth to 10s of suggestions” or something like that.I’ve remembered to be more careful about my datas when i’ve read your post.Thanks for sharing your experience.By the way,i wonder that how much time will it take to get your regular performance on google.Please keep us updated.
Best wishes.
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