How to Backup WordPress Site – Complete Guide
Curious to know how to backup WordPress site? Have you ever lost your WordPress site? Or have you just lost your WordPress site? Perhaps you fell victim to a malicious hacker. Or your site just crashed after installing a faulty plugin, theme, or add-on. Maybe your hosting failed – the bad dog ate the server. It’s scary. No, not the dog; losing your site. And you can go crazed if you don’t understand what to do to restore your valuable WordPress site to its former glory.
Well, imagine what: You don’t have to sweat one bit with a secure backup solution in place. All you have to is hit the restore key! – You’re back up and running.
In this post, you study that backing up your WordPress site is extremely easy. You’ll determine how to create full backups for your WordPress-based company. Then you can rest simple knowing you have a plan ready.
What is WordPress Backup?
Since your website comprises multiple files and a database, a fully functional WordPress backup is a copy of both.
The website’s files consist of core installation files and the content, such as plugins and themes, essential in running your WordPress site. By default, they are stored inside the leading directory called public_html.
On the other hand, the database stores website data such as posts, tags, comments, links, users, pages, and many more extra. If you miss to back up your site, you will be left with a clean slate when you will require to restore it from scratch.
How to Backup WordPress Site – In 6 Steps
Now, here’s how to back up your website with BackupBuddy in 5 easy steps:
Download and install BackupBuddy: (install like any different WordPress plugin). You’ll also need to activate BackupBuddy (visit your plugins dashboard and follow the directions).
Configure BackupBuddy:
- Go to the settings page for the BackupBuddy plugin (in your WordPress).
- Do two things: first.
- Choose a password for ImportBuddy (under “General Options,” which protects your backup files).
Second, insert an email address where error notifications should be sent:
Set up offsite backups: You should send a copy of your backup files offsite if your server crashes or is otherwise inaccessible. BackupBuddy runs with DropBox, Amazon S3, other services, and something new called BackupBuddy Stash.
BackupBuddy Stash is nearly free built-in secure offsite storage included with your BackupBuddy purchase.
So prefer Stash or whichever remote destination you like best. Hit on Remote Destinations from the BackupBuddy menu and choose to add a new destination.
Complete your first backup: Now you’re able to run your first backup. Hit Backup from the BackupBuddy menu and choose Complete Backup. Watch in the window as the plugin backs everything up.
Once the plugin finishes, you could download the backup file (for safekeeping or to migrate your website someplace else), send it to your remote destination, or you can drop it on the server. I suggest sending it to your previously configured remote destination to verify that process works.
Schedule regular backups: Now comes the last and most crucial step. You should schedule regular backups. BackupBuddy recommends starting with “daily database-only and weekly full backups.” I prefer to schedule full daily backups. Weekly might be OK for you if you don’t change files on your server very often or if you’re OK with potentially losing some changes during a restore.
Restoring from backup with BackupBuddy is simple: You upload the backup file along with a particular file called importbuddy.php to your server and test some important details.
As I told you, there are other backup options out there, including free plugins and server scripts. I don’t recommend trusting something so crucial to an unreliable plugin.
The peoples from WordPress do have a service called VaultPress, which may be worth trying. Plans start at $15. I don’t have any experience with VaultPress. If you’ve done it, please share your experience in the comments here.
Why Do You Need Backups?
Websites are not invulnerable to hacking, malware, and all sorts of other errors. Having a backup saves you a lot of time and money by restoring it to its stable state. After all, nothing changes your brand credibility faster than broken or hacked websites.
Of course, most maximum web hosting company’s offer automated backups as a part of their services, but you can never be too careful with these points. As a rule of thumb, it’s good to keep multiple copies of your website files and database in three separate places, such as system, external hard drive, and cloud storage. So if one backup is damaged, you can always rely on another.
The backup frequency depends on how often you’re updating your website’s content and design.
Where Are WordPress Backups Stored?
Where your WordPress backups are stored depends on your way of creating them. For example, if you manually downloaded your files and database from cPanel and phpMyAdmin, your backup should be saved to your computer’s hard drive.
If you utilize a tool like UpdraftPlus, your backup will be stored in the cloud option you took during the plugin’s setup process (for example, Google Drive or DropBox). If you did not choose a cloud option or use a different plugin, your backup files are typically stored within your existent WordPress database and file system.
If you need to restore a backup because your website was hacked, converting files stored in the hacked database may not be the best option. So it’s important that whatever your backup solution might be, you keep multiple copies of your backups stored in outside places.
Conclusion
Backing up your WordPress website is needy if you want to ensure your website stays safe and secure. It gives you the rest of your mind that you can immediately restore your website and continue doing business as usual instead of suffering downtime while you rebuild your site.
You now know how to backup and restore your WordPress website for free, so there is no reason to hold. Download the plugins discussed in this tutorial and set up your backup schedule.
