Ultimate Guide To Back up Your WordPress Site

Contemporarily, around 25% of the websites in the digital world are running on WordPress. It is a versatile platform that has grown its worth and success in the online world gradually and has become one of the leading website building and customization platform. Being one of the fastest-growing web publication software, it is one of the most significant sources of driving traffic. 

With the advancements of technology that have been brought in the world today, it is now easier than ever to build a website that is attractive and simple at the same time. It could be used for anything, including branding and business. Besides the facts stated above, it is often asked what WordPress is?

However, if the website is not backed up, it can probably be the biggest disaster for you, and thus backing it up is one of the things that you must know. But before that, let’s be clear on what WordPress is.

What is WordPress? 

At its core, WordPress is an open-source content management system that enables the users to build and manage their own full-featured website without having any knowledge of coding. It began as a simple website designed for people who wanted to create a basic blogging site and host them on the internet. However, with time it has grown to become a flexible and powerful tool for creating almost any type of website that the user requires.  

It might seem a little intimidating at first glance, but it is relatively easy to understand and operate it. You only need to have an introduction, and you’ll be able to create your own website. Not just that, it also allows customizing the website according to your goals and mission. 

With many amazing features of WordPress, many renowned enterprises today use it to power their websites. To get a more detailed view of why you should use WordPress to make your website, here are six reasons which can give you an insight.

Well, that was clear about what WordPress is, but one thing that you should not forget while working on this platform is that you should always back up the WordPress site so that in case of any disruptions happening, you can always start from where you left. Thus, here we bring you the guide to back up WordPress Site.

What You Need To Back Up a WordPress Site

There are two simple things that you might need to back up your WordPress site.

1. The Database

The WordPress database can contain all the text content for your site, which includes posts, pages, comments, and much more. Also, the plugins and widgets could also be stored in the database. MySQL is used to manage the database. To back it up properly, you should work on exporting the database in an SQL text file (it usually has .sql filename extension), so whenever you improve it back, you can restore the site as it was.

2. The Files 

Alongside the database, your WordPress site has a number of files that are also required to be backed up to be assured of the data recovery. It can include the WordPress code as well. Moreover, the wp-config.php file contains the basic configurations of the WordPress and the plugins or themes that it contains. WP-upload folders, media files, images, PDFs, explainer animated videos, and everything in between could be saved through the files.

How WordPress backup systems work

Well, there are a number of backup systems that you can choose from; however, people mostly use the WordPress plugin to make the compressed copy of files and databases. It is usually stored in a zip file, and you can save it anywhere, including the Google Drive account or Dropbox or any other remote server. This helps you to get the small files or database uploaded only; in other cases, you can save it on the FTP server if you have got one.

Schedules and Older backups

Almost all of the backup systems are set to the automatic backup schedule. Such as you can select to back up your website every hour, every day, or every week, and it will automatically make the considerations on backing it up according to the selected preference. This means now you don’t have to worry about backing it up again and again. Also, it will notify you whenever it is updated so that you know that your site is backed up successfully.

Also, you can keep the older backups in the server to ensure that you have all the previous data as well as, and you can access it whenever you want something from an older version of your site.

Why backups are important

Back up can protect your WordPress site from a number of mishaps, and even in the worst scenarios of losing the site, you can also get your entire WordPress site in just minutes. Here are a few scenarios when you should back up, or you will be glad that you had a back up of the previous version.

• You install a new plugin, and it breaks your site.

Installing a new plugin can make you have a risk of clashing with another plugin, and the site can go down as a result of the same. In such cases, you will be glad that you had a back up of your WordPress site.

• Your server crashes and loses your whole site

Yes, this does happen! Your web server can break at any time, taking your site with it. Or a piece of software running on the server can go crazy and munches your site’s files and database. Bye-bye site. And yes, your web hosting company should be able to restore your site from their own backups, but don’t count on it!

• You make a change to your site that breaks it

Maybe you made a little tweak to your site’s theme, a widget, or your WordPress configuration, and now the whole site’s just displaying an error message. (We’ve all been there!) Hopefully, you can figure out what you did and undo the change, but if not, it’s nice to know you can just restore the whole site from a backup.

• Your site gets hacked, and you need to roll back

Hacking is a common practice these days, and even the best-protected sites can get hacked because the sites are vulnerable to hack, and in these cases, you can always get your site rolling again with the backup that you made before the hack.

• You update your WordPress, a plugin, or a theme and it breaks your site

This is commonly seen when people always thank WordPress for having their back up. Most of the time, the WordPress plugins and codes play nicely with each other; however, sometimes there are glitches when you apply a specific plugin to a version. If they are not compatible, the site might stop working, and then you can use your backup.

Final Words

It is always better to have a backup when you are dealing with technology, and when it comes to WordPress site is the must-do thing that one should have in mind. It takes time and effort to get a site developed, and losing it in a flash might just hurt badly not only to your business but also to your sentiments, and thus you should always have a backup.