About Anders Johansson
What is crucial to avoid issues? To run and create WordPress site backup regularly. All experienced WordPress site owners know it. Many users skip this simple backup routine. Do you make backups, or at least consider starting?
In this post, I’ll talk about backup WordPress site 8-alarming excuses to skip backups. I hope you like and share this article.
Once you create a new website, you are most interested in which CMS to use, its design, and what content it can have. Backup is one thing you often forget to do. Sadly. Do you recognize this?
Are you ready to learn how your site will be safe? Read this article from start to finish.
Is it vital that you make a backup?
Yes, backups let you restore your website fast. You should backup everything – your whole database and all your files.
Backup means copying and storing computer data in another place. As a result, you can restore the original data after a data loss incident. It is a security act that saves you a lot of stress.
Some possible causes why you need to restore
- Your site gets hacked.
- You run an update that goes wrong.
- After you install a faulty theme or plugin, your website crashes.
- Your server gets software or hardware errors.
- The web server changes its structure.
- Your web host can suffer from server outages.
- You missed a payment to your web hosting company.
The best way to backup a WordPress site
Of course, you can do manual backups, but using a plugin is faster, easier, and safer. You are in charge of the whole step once you run manual backups.
It means creating duplicates of your website’s files and database. Also, you always have to store them in a safe spot.
WordPress plugins are great tools that add extra functions to your site. For backups, we recommend using a plugin called UpdraftPlus. This plugin makes the backup job both smooth and efficient.
Get UpdraftPlus, The world’s most trusted WordPress backup plugin:
Visit UpdraftPlus
We use many excuses to skip backups. Are you curious to read more about them?
1. No backup is necessary for my new page
That is a common excuse. Do you choose not to make backups at all? Then, all your hard work with your site may be gone in one second. As a result, you may lose all your site content.
You never know in advance if or when your home will burn. It works exactly in the same way with websites. There is no way to predict if or when your site will crash.
Hence, you always have to be ready if any occurs. That might be the best reason for you to start with backups.
How much time will it take for you to do a backup? For most sites, a short time.
Schedule backups that will run regularly. You can also set up automatic backups.
But what is a common excuse for backup WordPress sites regarding database backup? Go on and read about it below.
2. I often do a database backup
Most content on your WordPress site gets stored in the database. It never means only one copy of the database is enough to restore.
The wp-content folder contains files of all your installed plugins, themes, and added images. You will find this folder on your web server.
Download the folder in your web hosting cPanel File Manager. You can also download the file by creating a zip folder.
How often do I urge you to create a backup of your wp-content folder? Every time you make vital changes.
The best method is still to use a good backup plugin, such as UpdraftPlus. By doing so, you can make full backups whenever you want.
With UpdraftPlus Backup Premium, you get some extra valuable functions too.
How often should I backup my WordPress site?
How often do you have to create a backup of your website? If you publish each day, you should perform a backup more often than a person who only posts a few times per month. Why? Because your website gets updated daily.
A great plan is to have various schedules for mixed parts of your site. Make a backup of your database more often. Here, all your posts get saved. You can do a backup less often for themes and plugins.
If your site crashes, you can upload some images again. That is no big deal. But you should make a total backup of your website. The backup must include your whole database and all your files.
Backup WordPress site configuration files
Back up the configuration files, too. The most crucial WordPress configuration files are the .htaccess file and wp-config.php file.
You will find these files in the public_html or WordPress root folder. They save settings related to your WordPress site. Manually re-creating the files is possible. But it is a good practice to add them to your regular backups.
The wp-config.php file holds vital data. Say, for instance, database connection info, table prefixes, and paths to specific folders. Besides, you can do a lot more settings.
Let me give an example. Does your WordPress site grow? You may wish to lower how many post revisions get saved in the database. Limit the total number of revisions by adding one line to wp-config.php. Change 10 for the total revisions you want to hold for every post. Here is the code: define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', 10 );
The .htaccess file controls how an Apache web server handles files. Via .htaccess, WordPress instructs how Apache uses its root folder and subfolders. A typical example: WP alters this file to serve pretty permalinks.
Do you use the Nginx web server? Nginx has no folder-level configuration file as the Apache .htaccess. All configuration gets done at the server level by an admin. WordPress can’t alter the configuration as it does with Apache.
Do you use a WordPress plugin for backup? It is possible to start and back up automatically.
With a plugin, you can remotely restore all your content. So you will have access to your content even if your website is down.
3. I only do manual backups
To only do manual backups at irregular times is a disaster that waits to occur. Never trust manual routines solely.
Lots of plugins let you run a manual backup. Hence, it is always a good plan to schedule automated backups if you forget to run a manual one.
If you follow best practices, you have to create backups every day. That takes time and is risky since you might forget to make backups now and then.
When you download your backup files, it is vital to label and group them. Otherwise, it can be hard to find the correct version to use for restoration.
4. I never risk anything
You are careful and avoid installing many themes and plugins. It is not enough to ensure your WordPress website is secure from any issues.
With some themes, you may need to add specific plugins. If you skip to update your plugins regularly, you take a risk. Why?
Hackers can exploit security holes in plugins. It can happen if the plugins are in use without getting updated to the last version.
Do you update your parent theme to a newer version? Sorry, all your changes may get overwritten during the update.
For this reason, I urge you to create a child theme. After that, you edit the child theme and not the parent theme. So you will not lose any customization when you update the parent theme.
Lots of plugins seem too compatible to create any problems. But that is not always the case.
Another common excuse for backup WordPress sites is the next one beneath. Have you heard anyone use this excuse before?
5. I promise I will make no mistakes
You aren’t the only potential source of issues. Many things can go wrong and hurt a WordPress installation. Let’s assume things like hacker attacks, server crashes, or bad plugins.
Have you used WordPress for years? Still, you can make mistakes that crash your site. Do you not have a backup to restore your site? You may be out in deep water.
So, never misjudge the power of saving backups. It can help restore many years of your hard work with a site. And you may get it done – only in a few seconds.
6. Backup WordPress site: I don’t need to update
WordPress gets updated all the time, and developers help to make the software better. How? Adding new functions, improving security, fixing bugs, and more.
A developer posts an update, and you decide whether you want to do the update on your site. But major WordPress updates aren’t risk-free for you. For example, the last update might be incompatible with a plugin you use on your website. That may crash your site.
A Gutenberg update in December 2018 resulted as follows. Many plugins did not work as hoped. Sites that use visual editors also found a few issues with how their pages got rendered.
What happens if any of the above occurs? Also, you have a complete backup of your site. You only need to restore it to the working version until you find the issue.
7. Autosave many versions for me
Autosave is a WordPress function. The function saves changes automatically on a page, post, or custom post type.
Do you write a post? And then your browser crashes in the blink of an eye? Your work won’t get lost due to Autosave.
The autosave function for pages and posts can never compare to a complete backup. Of course, it can handle different versions of your content. But with this function, you will not lose a post or can fix some errors when you save it. That is all it does!
Lastly, you get a usual excuse to skip backup WordPress sites.
8. My web hosting company does the backup for me
It’s rather usual that web hosting companies can help you with backups. But no one can make me believe that my web hosting will solve all data loss issues. Some web hosts do what they claim. They do backups each hour and other security actions. Yet, well-organized plans can fail.
Most web hosts do backups automatically. But what happens if their entire data center is not working for some cause or due to a power outage? Thus, you should ensure to have a good backup strategy ready.
By making your backup yourself, you gain more control of your website. It saves you time without the need to contact your hosting and wait for a reply. The reply may be that there is only a partial backup instead of a full one, or there isn’t a single one.
At best, there is an entire backup of your server. But restoring it will take a long time, as you only have to restore one site.
Does your web hosting provider see you get hacked? Or do you have a problem that can cause other sites on your server to be vulnerable? They may freeze your account. If so, to let your web hosting do all the backups for you is no longer an option.
Backup WordPress site: What gets saved in the backups?
Sometimes, these backups only consist of the files in your space and not your database. Thus, ask how your web hosting deals with backups.
How often do they make backups, how many do they save, and for how long? Some web hosts execute backups once a week and only keep them for seven days.
If you want to restore from a backup, say five weeks ago, your web hosting might not be able to help. The only way to make a restore is if you have created a full backup in advance. And, of course, you are also storing all backups made in the latest 30 days.
Luckily, you can automate this whole process with a WordPress plugin.
» Watch the video: How to back up your WordPress website
Get UpdraftPlus, The world’s most trusted WordPress backup plugin:
Visit UpdraftPlus
Backup WordPress Site: 8 Alarming Excuses: Summary
We all use excuses to skip backups sometimes. That’s the way it is. When was the last time you made a complete backup of your site? If you follow best practices, you should create backups daily.
Create a plan to have various schedules for different parts of your site. Back up your database each day since all your posts get saved there. Run a backup for your themes and plugins once a week. It can be enough but may vary from case to case. Pick a schedule that suits you and your business best.
To skip creating backups can, in a second, ruin many years of hard work with your site. I’m sure you don’t want that to happen. But how do you start with backups on your site?
It’s not hard to set up automatic backups of your WordPress site. So I advise you to do it. You will find many WordPress plugins to begin and use for this task.
Many ask: How do you backup a WordPress site fast and with little effort? This tutorial shows how to do it step-by-step: How to Backup a WordPress Site for Free in 2024
Did you like this article?
Backup WordPress Site: 8 Alarming Excuses
Feel free to leave your comments so we can all read and learn from them.
Share Your Comments & Feedback