What is an FTP Server?

What is FTP?

FTP is the publishing method by which Blogger transfers blog files to remote servers, so you only need to know about it if you are publishing to your own website. If you are using our free BlogSpot hosting, the publishing is all taken care of for you automatically.

Blogger works with both passive FTP and SFTP (secure FTP), but not active FTP. If your hosting provider only supports active FTP, you can ask them to enable either of the other versions so that you can work with Blogger.

What is an FTP Server?

An FTP server is a computer that uses FTP to accept uploaded files from users. The address of your FTP server usually looks something like this: ftp.example.com

When you purchase a hosting service, you should be provided with the address of the FTP server to use. If you do not have this information or you are unsure about it, please contact your hosting provider.

Notes:

  • The default port numbers will be used (:21 for FTP and :22 for SFTP). Specifying an alternate port will not work.
  • Do not include http:// or ftp:// in the server address.

What is the FTP path?

FTP path tells Blogger where to place your blog files on your server. It should be of this format:

directory/directory/ (be sure to include the trailing slash)
If you're familiar with FTP, your "path" is your web-accessible directory. For example, it might be 'htdocs' or 'www' or 'public_html'

Or, if you want to put your blog in a subdirectory, 'htdocs/blog/' etc.

If all this sounds a bit complicated, try contacting your hosting provider for help. They can tell you how things should be set up for your specific server.

Notes:

  • Do NOT use http://, ftp:// or ftp.example.com (your server's address)
  • The directory you specify must already exist on your FTP Server
  • This must not be an absolute path - it should be relative to your ftp root location on the server.

Detailed Example (optional)

The path setting you use will depend entirely on how your server is configured, so this example should only be taken as an example of how to determine the correct path to use. The actual path shown here will not necessarily work on your own blog.
  • Start up your favorite FTP program to access your account. If you don't have an FTP program, or don't know what that is, use Internet Explorer (on a PC) or Firefox (Mac or PC).
  • To log in, you'll need to use the username and password that you set up with your hosting provider (not necessarily the same information that you use to log in to Blogger).
  • In IE or Firefox, enter ftp://ftp.example.com in the address bar, substituting in the FTP address for your host. When you press Enter, it will prompt you for your username and password. Alternatively, you can enter ftp://username@ftp.example.com and it will just prompt you for the password. If you are using a different FTP program, you can probably enter all this information at once. If it asks for a default path or directory, leave that setting blank.
  • Now that you've logged in, you should see a list of files and/or directories on your FTP account. Look for a folder with a name like httpdocs, www, public_html or anything that looks like it's supposed to contain web pages. On some servers, the folder is named the same as your domain, e.g. www.example.com. If you don't see an obvious candidate, ask your hosting provider where webpages are supposed to go. For this example, we'll say that the folder was called www.
  • Once you find this folder name, it will be your path setting, e.g. www/. That may be all you need, if you just want your blog to be at the root level of your server, e.g. at http://www.example.com/myblog.html. (This is assuming you're publishing your blog with a filename of 'myblog.html'.)
  • If you want your blog in a specific directory, you can just add that to the end of the path, like this: www/blog/. This will publish your blog to a location like this: http://www.example.com/blog/myblog.html. If the given folder does not yet exist on your account, Blogger will go ahead and create it for you.
  • Once you've got your path setting figured out, you'll need to enter it not only for your Publishing settings, but also for your Archiving and Site Feed settings. Most likely, you'll just use the exact same settings on these pages. Some people though, like to put archives in a different folder, with a path like www/blog/archives/.
 
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