Website Backup: What They Are and Why You Need One

One of the most crucial computer phrases to understand is backup or the process of backing up your WordPress website (Website Backup). It refers to making a copy of your files ( themes, plugins, media, databases, and others) and storing them. Let us suppose that your originals are lost and you don’t have any backups of those files, then what? You will lose everything, not just your files, but the capital you invest in that file.

Let’s take an example, you own a WordPress website and your business is growing and growing. By this time you don’t think about backing up your website and you might think about what will happen to your site. And suddenly your website is hacked and you can’t access your website or a 404 error shows when you try to access it.

It means you lose all the files of the website and the capital you invest in this.

The backup safeguards you from losing your documents, images, and any other form of the file you want to keep. You can get backups from your host server. But, there is no guarantee that you will get all your data back. What if you get old data not updated. Is it enough for you? If not, then back up your files by yourself so that if anything goes wrong then also you don’t have to run here and there to get your data. All your files will be stored in a safe place like Google Drive, OneDrive, Local Web Server, or other storage devices. So better to keep backup by yourself rather than depending upon anyone.

If you have no idea about website backup then I will be sharing with you some of the basic details. In general, a website backup is a snapshot of all your website’s important components. It should include all of the elements of your website:

• Website code files
• Any website databases
• Images
• Any add-ons, plugins, or themes used by your website

You may know that website backup is an important part of regular site maintenance. 

What is a Website Backup?

Well, a Website Backup is a solution for website owners which helps to safeguard your website against accidental or malicious activities. Website Backup prevents data loss and allows you to restore your site from the last known safe version. 

Generally, the Website Backup is a full or partial archive of your site files and database, saved at some given point, typically compressed, and stored in a .zip file. Depending on where and how often you back up your site, you can decide which earlier version you’d like to restore to, it’s all up to you.

Not only that, the Website Backup allows you to back up your site and related databases via FTP(File Transfer Protocol) or SFTP(Secure File Transfer Protocol) to a secure cloud location. 

How can you lose Data?

Don’t be overconfident. If your website is not hacked, then there are many causes of Data Loss. Some of them are:

Deleting files accidentally:

This is one of the common causes of data loss. Sometimes we accidentally delete the file permanently or overwrite the file. This means you lose a file. Or let’s say someone deletes an important file from your website. Instead of blaming someone, you can simply have a backup of your data so that nobody can harm you easily.

Viruses and damaging malware:

This is a dangerous cause of lost data because it not just affects the website data but also causes huge damage. It is somehow difficult to figure out how viruses attack and you need professional help. And not sure the professional can be able to recover all data which are affected by viruses. Imagine because of the viruses and damaging malware you lost client databases, industrial information for financial transactions, or some important files.

You know what will happen next.

Mechanical damages to the hard drive:

There is no lifetime guarantee of the hard drive of your computer. It has a life of around 5-6 years. And within that year or after 5-6 years your hard drive can be damaged then. You will lose your data. Yes, there is an option of recovering your hard drive but if your hard drive is recovered then you will lose some money, and if not then you will lose money and data.

Let’s be positive and suppose your hard drive is working properly. But with the growth of your website, you add things to your website which means it needs more space. So the problem here is you have a limitation of storage space in the hard drive. The solution is to buy a new hard drive and transfer the file but is it always possible to do this?

Power failures:

Let us suppose you are working on something, let’s say writing an article for your website and power cut then what will happen. You will lose the article because you won’t be able to save the content. This must be a simple example but what if you are working with some sophisticated database or working on detailing the graphics and power cut. You know what will happen if you lose power during working.

Theft of computers and physical damages:

What if you lost your computer or you spilled coffee/water into your computer, or fire accidents and explosions in the place where you put your computer (office or house). You will lose your device as well as the file.

Consequences of Neglecting Backup

Neglecting Backup can be the biggest mistake of your life if you are a business person. Usually, we keep a backup of other stuff for future use then why do we neglect it when it comes to taking backup of our website. The main motto of keeping backing of anything is if anything goes wrong or in future, if we need it we will be able to use it. Same as we take the Website Backups to keep things safe and for the future. In this growing technology, we won’t know when we need the backup. Here I have included some consequences you have to face if you neglect backup.

Losing all your work:

Creating a website of any kind needs a lot of work i.e time and energy. And the longer you keep the website, the more you need to work on it. And you can’t think of losing, content, graphics, plugins, preferred settings, customized code, themes, scripts, marketing funnels, and everything, right? What should be done to avoid this scenario? Of course, Website Backup.

If you don’t have any backups then it’s impossible to restore all your data and you will have to recreate all from the beginning.

Loss of site revenue during recovery:

Your website can be generating revenue via content, products, or services, and losing all of those is risky. If your site is content-driven, then you’ll have to create all of this content from scratch. Similarly, if you run an eCommerce website, you’ll have to recreate your product pages, category pages, and everything again.

Your existing revenue stops until you can completely restore your website when your website is offline. It could take a long time and effort depending upon the data you have lost. But if you have a small business or you are a solopreneur then you can create every piece of your content yourself but again you will need a lot of time for that.

Why do you need to have a Website Backup?

Imagine you have an eCommerce or any other kind of website, and at some point, you may face issues like loss of data, site getting hacked, accidentally deleting critical files, etc. Scary right? And to eradicate those issues you need to have a Website Backup. Website Backups are your safety precaution for when your website has a problem and you have no idea how to fix it. 

It’s necessary to have website security tools in place to protect your site from hackers, or to detect if a hacker has gained entry to your site. However, just these will not be enough if the hacker is able to gain access and overwrite or remove your files.

The worst-case scenario is no matter what security tools you use, the risk of being hacked is never going to be zero. If that happens to your website, then even a great website security platform won’t be able to restore broken or missing content without you having a backup solution implemented in the first place.

Once your website files are overwritten or deleted, there is no way to recover them unless you have a backup, thus backups in many cases are considered a lifesaving solution.

It is quite frightening to imagine losing all of your website data and what it feels like to be in that place. It isn’t a fun experience. It’s more of something that’s completely avoidable with the right online backup software behind you.

Following are the reasons why you need Website Backups:

Easy Recovery

Let us suppose a virus attack and you lost your website data and luckily you have a Website Backup. Then you can easily recover your data using the backup. You can install a backup plugin on your website and upload the backup file to recover the website. In a few minutes, your website will be recovered. If not then you have to redo all the work from the beginning.

Save Business

Having a backup always saves work. And when it comes to a business it saves a lot. You never know when you need a backup of your website. Let’s take a scenario, you are on a business trip and someone hacked your website, or someone inside of your company sold your website data to another company. Yes, you must go legal in this case but if you have a backup of your website then the court will be on your side and your business will be saved. And if it is hacked then you can recover the data by just restoring the backup file.

Peace of Mind

Backup gives you peace of mind and it’s practically proven. Let’s take an example of a house party. You have 50 guests at your home and the food is enough and you have stored some in your kitchen (in case of need). If this is the case then you can enjoy the party but you have limited food (enough for 50 guests) and 10 more guests came (a total guest 60). Then you will start to panic and you won’t be able to enjoy the part.

Like this, a backup of your website decreases your stress and you will worry less so that you can focus on other stuff like focusing on the growth of the company. But no backup, which leads you to panic, and lots of stress, and if anything goes wrong then you will lose a huge amount.

Saves Time and Money

Your website has been hacked with no tension, virus attack no tension, content fraud no tension because you have a backup of your website. With backup, you can recover all of the lost data. And sometimes you need help from professionals to recover but it won’t make much money if you have backup and less time required to recover all the data.

We have talked about backup, how data loss, the consequences of neglecting backup, and why we need backup. Now let’s talk about how you can backup your data without the help of an expert (but in some cases, you need help from an expert).

How to Website Backup?

Mainly there are two ways to do Website Backup.

The first one is backing up a website from the dashboard or Cpanel. Using the dashboard you can take backup of contents only and to backup the database you need to do that from PHPMYADMIN. Or go to the Cpanel of your website and backup from there. But remember small mistakes can cause a huge problem if you are backing up your website from Cpanel. This is one risky and confusing way to backup your website.

Now let’s talk about another method that is installing a backup plugin on your website. It is an easy task, you don’t need an expert to assist you and it is not confusing. You will be confused while choosing the plugin because in wordpress.org you get hundreds of plugins.

The link (blog) will help you to choose the best backup plugin What Should I Look At To Find The Best WordPress Backup Plugins.

Now you must be wondering which file you should back up and which is not necessary to back up for that. Also, we have a blog Which WordPress Files Should You Backup? And the Right Way to do it.

Furthermore, we want the best for you so we suggest you the best WordPress backup plugin, Everest Backup Plugin.

Everest Backup compresses a backup of the website, no matter what size it is. You may roll back your backup from your WordPress website dashboard with a single click. This Everest Backup plugin will backup all of your files, and the best part is that you can schedule your backups or do them manually. It also allows you to efficiently restore the backup whenever you need it.

Furthermore, you can also choose what to backup and what not to backup. With a single click, your data will be restored. You can clone your site for development, staging, or testing. You can also quickly transfer your site to a new host, domain, or table prefix.

Some features of Everest Backup plugins: 

Easy-to-use: Enroll in a simple interface that allows you to backup and restore your data with a single click on a timetable that works for you.

Client Trusted: Everest Backup is tested in more scenarios, installed on more servers, and rated higher than other competitors.

Comprehensive: Everest Backup is a complete, general-purpose backup and restores plugin with a unique feature, Human readable logs.  

Cloning and migration:  Copy and paste the magic link to another domain and migrate within a minute.

Fast, personal support: Provides expert help and support from the developers whenever you are in need.

Network / multisite: Besides standard single sites, Everest Backup supports multisite network backup and migration. 

Because of all these imposing features of the Everest Backup data Plugin, we recommend installing this plugin to backup your WordPress website. We promise you that with the revised version of the Everest Backup data Plugin, you will get new and productive features that are best for your WordPress website. 

Learn more features of the Everest Backup Plugin Here…

Let’s discuss Everest Backup backup methods

You can back up your files in two ways:

• Manual Backup
• Schedule Backup (Automatic backup)

i.e; Either you do the backup manually every time you change anything on the website. Or set the time, location, and what to backup files then let the system do this job.

How to Backup Manually?

Go to the Everest Backup plugin and select Backup. There you will see two options: one manually backup and another scheduled backup.

Select what to backup (plugins, themes, media, or database). After that, choose the location where to store the backup file. Then click on backup now. It will take a few seconds, and then click on download. Within that few seconds, you can abort the backup also.

For more details: https://wpeverestbackup.com/how-to-backup-manually/

For video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/embed/shOfV5BT7o0?list=PLJ9kDzVp2heF2Qa3Pfe2d8ZrOn60reYIt

How to schedule a backup?

Go to the Everest Backup plugin and select Backup. There you will see two options: one manually backup and another scheduled backup. Click on schedule backup.

Set the Cron Cycle to run periodically at a fixed time to backup. After that, choose the place to save the backup file and then, select what to backup( plugins, themes, media, and database). 

Then enable the notify button so that it will email you once the scheduled backup is completed. At last, save the settings. According to the time you have set, location, and selected items will be backed up. You will be notified once it is completed.

For more details: https://wpeverestbackup.com/how-to-schedule-backup/

For video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/embed/zUliy2RKSPA?list=PLJ9kDzVp2heF2Qa3Pfe2d8ZrOn60reYIt

Like this, you can do a manual or scheduled backup of your website using the Everest Backup Plugin. If you get any error messages then you can directly email bug-report[at]wpeverestbackup. com with your issues or if you get any kinds of error messages then send an email with an error message screenshot and information about your system.

To get information on your system go to Everest Backup Plugin setting, select general, and then information.