Read on to find out some reasons why to back up a website.

Avoiding Website Hackers

Nowadays, hackers have become rather prominent on the web.

Why Do Hackers Hack Websites?

• The aim of some hacker may be to try and steal someone’s credit card numbers along with other sensitive information
• But usually people hack a website simply to prove themselves or to develop trouble

If a website is online, there are always chances that this may get compromised. Making certain that the site is secure and also backed up is a way to keep the site protected from getting hacked.

Stay Away From Computer Catastrophes

It is a good idea to store a copy of the files that you have on your computer, but if the machine crashed, got lost, damaged, etc, the files will also be gone with this.

It is better to back up the files remotely if something were to happen to the computer. This is the more practical solution.

Your Updates Gone Wrong

When it comes to regular updates, this refers to updated features as well as increased security. These will not always occur as planned. Therefore, WordPress always informs you to carry out a backup before updating.

A website has different components such as plugins, themes, software, plus back-end programming. If an awry update occurs to any of these, this can take a complete website offline and for some unforeseen time also.

Impact Of Malware and Viruses

It is possible for viruses, trojan horses, along with other malware to find their way within your website via different avenues, also through third party sites which are usually safe. There are some ways that these can come and annoy you.  

• These can be downloaded unknowingly with some theme and plugin.
• They may even slip in via a crack within your firewall’s armor.

If you have backup files, you can be prepared in case the site begins to act in a strange way.

Human Error Happens

Human beings make mistakes. It is better to have precautions in place so that any mistake can be minimized. There is a possibility that some employees may click the wrong button or even delete an important file by accident. If you backup files, there is less chance a human error will threaten your operations.

Limit The Damage

Imagine logging onto the website you have and seeing an unfamiliar error page. Even though you continue trying, the main page still seems to not come up. One may get tense that there is something wrong.

If your site tends to be backed up as well as secure, this can bring relief when a situation like this pops up. That is why backing up a site can allow you to be stress-free concerning the worry about losing the site data.

Now Let Us Look at How to Backup a Website.

Ways To Backup a Website

You may be convinced now that backing up the website is the correct thing to do. A few ways are present concerning how to do this. Read on to find out how to back up the website so as to restore it if data loss occurs.

1. See if the web host gives website backups like a service.
2. If someone designed your website, you can contact them and ask them if they can do this for you. They should actually have sufficient knowledge of the ways that content management systems function allowing them to pursue a manual backup for the files that you have.
3. Employ an extra “just in case” type of backup service. There are services like these that are present. You can find these by carrying out some research. There are some that are more cost effective in comparison to others, whilst others have software which is more or even less user-friendly.
4. You can install a helpful backup plugin upon your site. There are some backup plugins that let you schedule automatic backups, and also send the files that you have to cloud storage services such as Dropbox.
5. For those who have smaller websites, they may just select to compress the files within a ZIP folder then email these to themselves. This works better for small websites. Therefore if your files size is bigger in comparison to how much the email provider allows one to send, or whether you think that the size of the site will expand, you may want to consider another backup choice.
6. You may want to save a copy consisting of your files on the computer. Nevertheless you should do this with some other backup services or procedures. If you have two or above copies of the files, this is not a bad idea. It is better to be safe.

Backup Your Site Regularly

Backing up a site is not very time consuming and it does not need much cash to pursue. It is a good investment if you think about the threats which are present online. If you have not got a backup of your website, you should do this so as to avoid being a tense business-owner that must constantly restart their website from the beginning. You can consider the above website backups steps if you want peace of mind when it comes to your website files.

You can tell from the above explanation that it is important to back up your website properly if you do not want to be faced with an extra hurdle when you lose your data. You may have seen news about some high profile website crash and if you want to avoid this then take out the time to back up your website.

Or, do it the EASY way.

Let Guard Wasp manage your WordPress security and backups for you.

The post The Importance of Backing Up A Website and How to Do It appeared first on GuardWasp.

Although the web is a secure and all-time available source to you, it is true that anything can happen in this world and you can experience a loss on the web as well. Any bug or virus can lead you to face a big data loss or damage to your website. In this regard, it is important to have a backup of your webpage to minimize the risks of any major loss.

Why Do You Need A Backup?

Commonly when anything is on the web, it is considered as secured but your webpage needs a backup to avoid any future damage.  Below are a few reasons to make sure you have a website backup:

Your Web Host Is Not Backing Up

It’s not your web hosting services provider’s responsibility to provide you with the backup services regularly. Sometimes, the services providers store the web content but, for their security, they are not liable to share it with you.

Storing the Original Version Is Not Enough

Sometimes when you make changes to the web page using any secondary or shared coding file, it will not reflect the changes in the original version automatically. You need to have a backup for any of the changes incorporated in the site. Furthermore, the valuable content you updated in the form of blog for the readers will only be stored on the web, no anywhere else.

Protection Against a Virus

Even after your efforts to protect your webpage from virus attacks, the backup can help you to protect your data. It helps you to turn back the clock after an attack and have the site running smoothly. It will not stop the attacks but will help you to reduce the chances of loss of data.

Backup is a Peace of Mind

When you know that something that can hit on your site and get all your efforts into a danger zone, the backup is your peace of mind. It will help you to take a back seat and relax.

Fundamentals of a Backup

Following are some of the fundamentals of backing up a website.

• It is important to store the backup at more than one location.
• A backup requires to be updated on regular basis.

It is, however, important to make sure that there is a local backup created on your personal device which is in your use. The other backup may be stored in a cloud or at a particular server which is meant for that purpose only. Storing a local backup may seem redundant to most of the people but it is a very effective technique to keep your data in case it is deleted from the cloud or from the server.

Nevertheless, if you don’t like local storage, it is recommended that you can use cloud storage to keep your backup. The backup for the website is dependent largely on the amount of work that is being carried out on the website. If you have an active website and you receive a lot of comments on your website, it is important to have a backup created after every week or so but if you don’t publish active content on your website, you can create a backup after every one month or so.

Backing Up a WordPress Site

WordPress is a very useful tool when it comes to innovation and ease of use. There are a number of plug-ins which can be used with WordPress in order to set up a backup, such as UpdraftPlus.

The following steps can be followed:

1. After creating a plug-in and its activation you can go to the new tab by ‘Setting’ in the Word Press dashboard.
2. Select the backup function from all the available options.
3. Click on the backup you will be provided with a number of options to get things done. Just click on the recommended settings and move on with the process.
4. Select the confirmation button and your backup will start.

It will take a minute or so, as it depends on the size of the website and the performance of the server. You can also restore your backup as well as you just need to click on the restore button. It also provides you with an option to make this process automated by helping you to schedule the time of the backup. You can also link your UpdraftPlus account to a cloud platform so that you never run out of storage and have enough space to manage your entire backup.

Backing Up Manually to the Cloud

You can also create a manual backup on the cloud to keep the data secured. The most important thing you need in all of this is to have direct access to your web server. There are two ways in which you can have access to your web server one is through FTP and the other is through hosting account file manager.

By using FTP and FileZilla, you can easily manage the backup. You just need to access a folder Public_html. In order to back up your files, you need to copy all the files in this folder and you are done with the backup.

Bottom Line:

It is very important to have a backup if you have a running website. This is very crucial to maintain the website and make it work smoothly. A few of options have been discussed in this article in order to back up your website data and avoid some critical situation with your work. This guide will help you to keep relaxed and prepare yourself for the hard times that can call up any time. By using the right backup technique, you can save time, efforts, and money too.

Or, do it the EASY way.

Let Guard Wasp manage your WordPress security and backups for you.

The post WordPress Website Backup: A Comprehensive Guide for Both Beginners And Webmasters appeared first on GuardWasp.