Having a handy backup of your website at your finger tips at all times is considered the best habit a website owner should learn. Imagine losing all of your website data within seconds due to a virus, hacker’s attack, or even due to your own mistake and you have no backup. It would be a nightmare for you to see your effort wasted in the blink of an eye. To avoid this terrible situation, you need to understand the importance of website backup and to know about the available WordPress backup and restore options.
WP gurus always suggest keeping your website backup all the time and it makes sense. Internet is a crazy place, especially for the website and business owners who use WordPress to build their business reputation. You never know when someone releases a hacking attack on your website or you lost all the data when updating the new version of a plugin or a WP theme.
Importance of a website backup
Losing the important data of your website should be enough reason to tell you about the importance of website backup but there are other things to consider as well. So, here is the list why you should keep the backup of your WP website:
- It avoids losing the important content of the website
- You can reverse issues that occur during website updates
- Backup guard against human errors
- Resolve Malware infections and un-authorized codes
- Backup also protect against potential hackers and viruses
- Make migrating a website from one web host to others easy
- Ensure an uninterrupted revenue stream in the system.
There are many WordPress backup and restore options, such as cPanel backup and restore, plugin in backup and offsite backup. I will discuss all the the 3 below, but before that I should stress that having a handy complete backup of your website and databases is the most security measure you can take for WordPress. Without making regular backups, You won’t feel conformable however secure is your website.
Despite the importance of backup, many webmasters, admins and site owners don’t take it seriously. Some of them rely on their web hosts to backup their sites, while other may do backups once in a while. Many don’t care until they found their websites are hacked, or their data is lost.
WordPress Backup and Restore Options
The are many options available when it come to WordPress backup. Here are the most popular options.
1- cPanel Manual backup and restore
Manual WordPress Backup and restore options is available using cPanel. The manual process required you to download every file by using cPanel or FTP. For database backup, you must have MySQL database knowledge. You can follow online tutorials on how to make a manual backup of WordPress and how to restore it when required. While performing this by you with limited knowledge can break the chain and cause a lot of errors in the website.
To use cPanel backup and restore feature follow these steps:
- Log into your cPanel control panel.
- Click on “Backup Wizard” icon.
- Select “Generate / Download a Full Backup”.
- Select “Home Directory” in “Backup Destination” and enter your email address
- Click “Generate Backup” button.
You’ll get an email when the backup is ready. The backup will be stored in your cPanel, normally in a directory under WP-Content. You need to go to that location to download the backup and keep it in safe place. If your website is updated frequently, you need to repeat the backup process once in while.
Please note that some web hosting companies may disable this feature. In this case to you have to use one of the following options.
2- Install WP Backup Plugin
The second method to backing word press is to use a plugin. There are several free and paid plugins available that can create backups on regular basis and provide you the option to restore the backup in no time. Each one has different features, advantages and disadvantages. Some are free and others cost some money.The best among these plugins are UpdraftPlus and Backupbuddy.
To install a backup plugin follow these steps:
1- login to WordPress Dashboard
2- Go to Plugins
3- Click add new
4-In the search Box, type” backup, you will be presented with the available free plugins
5- Choose the ones with high active installs and good reviews.
6- Install few of them, evaluate and then decide on the ones to use.
Here is list of some of the backup Plugins for WordPress:
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UpdraftPlus
comes up with both free and paid versions. Their free version can create automatic backups but with the paid version you have more functions to perform and have better control over your WordPress backup. It can restore both the wordpress full site files and database. Other than just these two options, their premium version also has dozens of other options including the option to migrate a website from one host to other quickly and smoothly.
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BackupBody
This highly recommended WordPress plugin by iThemes makes the whole process of backup and restoration fast. Backupbuddy creates a backup of the entire WordPress website (including database and all WP websites). It gives you the option to set up backup schedules to run automatically and restore the site quickly and easily from a backup. Backupbuddy stores backup off-site in a secure and safe location.
Other Backup plugins are:
- Cyan Backup
- BackWpup
- Backup
- Xcloner
- Backup Guard
- Simple Backup
- WP ALL Backup
- Darwin Backup
- DropBox backup
All of the above are free and can perform basic backups for WordPress files and databases. Each one has advantages and disadvantages. you may have to check few of them before deciding on which one to use.
3– Offsite WP Auto Backup Services
Offsite backup services are best in terms to save time where they are also fast and have less chance of errors. If you don’t have any knowledge about how to backup and restore WordPress manually or with the help of a plugin then you can consider the external WordPress backup and restore options like BlogVault and Myrepono.
Having an offsite auto backup at an external source is a wise thing to do. Some cost money, but they make you sleep better. Google Drive and DropBox are some examples. You can schedule your backups, daily , weekly or monthly.
Benefits of automatic website backup
1- Peace of mind
2- Enhanced security
3- Convenience
4- Instant recovery
Here is a list of some of offline auto backup services:
- BlogVault: Currently this external offsite backup and restore service is being used by more than 300,000 websites worldwide with a five-star rating. The Blogvault has made the whole process very easy and fast for the users. Their recovery tool can recover the backup n less than 5 minutes where their backup tool creates a backup of all files and database of the WordPress. This does not overload your server and gives almost zero site downtime due to the fast recovery option.
BlogVault’s WordPress website backup offers the perfect disaster-management solution for your website. It automatically backs up your site’s data every day in small increments, so your site is never overloaded. It also ensures that all your backups are encrypted and stored safely in a remote location.
: Currently this external offsite backup and restore service is being used by more than 300,000 websites worldwide with a five-star rating. The Blogvault has made the whole process very easy and fast for the users. Their recovery tool can recover the backup n less than 5 minutes where their backup tool creates a backup of all files and database of the WordPress. This does not overload your server and gives almost zero site downtime due to the fast recovery option.
With BlogVault backup, all your data is easily recoverable — in fact you can restore your website with a single click!… Start your free trial
myRepono is an online website backup service enabling you to securely backup your web sites using an online and web-based management system.MyRepono allows you to automate the process of backing up your web site. The myRepono is one of the easiest to setup online website backup services. Once you’ve setup our easy-to-install backup API you simply select which files and mySQL databases you would like to backup and myRepono takes care of the rest, automatically backing up your site as frequently as you require.At any time you can login to the myRepono online backup management system to view, download and restore your backups using easy-to-use web-based management and backup restoration tools.You can automate your WordPress backups using myRepono WordPress Backup Plugin! They offer $5.00 free startup.An easy-to-install WordPress plugin which automates the myRepono API set-up process, enabling you to setup automated WordPress backups in a matter of minutes. myRepono is an automated website backup solution. In five easy steps you could be protecting your data and ensuring your web site’s stability.If your website data is disrupted, simply log-in to myRepono and use the automated restoration tools to recover your files in seconds. All restoration is managed through online tools ensuring quick, easy and reliable backup file restoration. Myrepono: They offer offsite WordPress backup services and a free plugin. Their paid services are best in terms to get the regular and fresh backup of your website any time of the day and week. They do not just create a backup of WordPress files, folders, and configurations but also the backup of MySQL database tables and much more, etc. You can download and restore backup anytime through a web-based management system offered by Myrepono.Backup CreatorBackup Creator is a complete backup solution for WordPress. It has the ability to automatically backup the database as well as make a complete website backup for one time fee.
Backups can be emailed to your email address, Saved to Drop box, amazon S3 and also on backup creator server. Restoring can be done with one click. Backup creator is a plugin that can be used on unlimited websites.
Conclusion
So, these are some best WordPress backup and restore options that you need to consider while designing the security mechanism of your website. I hope that this will help you to create an effective WordPress security mechanism.
Regardless of which method you choose to backup your word press website, you should be aware that there are tree important elements you need to consider when backing up your website, they are:
1- Data bases
2- WordPress files and folders
3- Your emails, forwards and configurations.
Having a complete website backups is the first line of defense to secure WordPress websites. Once your WordPress website is configured for backed up, then you can proceed to securing your WordPress site.
Before thinking about securing your WordPress website, the first and the most important step is to make sure you that have a complete backup of your word press files, databases plugins, and themes, and you must have an easy access to the location of the backup so that in case any disaster happens, you can put your website online in a few minutes.
Summary
An up to date complete backup of a website is the ultimate security for your website, because if your website got hacked or some files became corrupted for any reason, all you have to do is restore your website form your last backup and it will be back online within minutes or at most few hours if you have a large website.