How and Why You Need to Set up WordPress Backup

Every WordPress guide that you will come across will recommend you to set up an automated WordPress backup system on your site. Why is it that everyone wants you to install a WordPress backup plugin? We will discuss that in this article. We will also talk about ways to install and setup a backup system, that doesn’t need your constant supervision and can work on its own once you set it up.

Is WordPress not secure?

WordPress is a fairly secure content publishing platform. But it is also one of the world’s most popular content management system. It powers nearly 23% of the entire web. That’s a really huge number. This immense popularity makes WordPress a target for many malicious attacks like DDOS attacks, SQL injection attacks, trojan and malware injection, and so on.

I have been running WordPress for this much time. I have never been hacked, why do I need backup?

Majority of WordPress users don’t get their sites affected by malware or hack attempts for years. However, this does not mean that they are immune to it. Even the most secure sites on the internet can get hacked. Instead of waiting for an accident to happen, wouldn’t it be smart to be prepared for it?

My web hosting company makes daily backups of my site, do I still need a backup system of my own?

Most web hosting companies keep daily backups of data stored on their servers and they can revert back your site to an earlier backup. However, if you read their terms of service, they are not responsible for any data loss, data corruption, or misuse. They have to do this to protect themselves against liability claims.

What this means for you is that your web hosting company is not legally bound to provide you a backup of your data. In fact, many web hosting companies sometimes terminate user accounts for non-payment, violation of their terms of service, or on legal notices.

It is your website, and you are responsible for safe keeping of your content.

What will happen if I don’t have a backup and my site’s attacked or gets infected by malware?

It could be a very painful experience if your site gets infected by malware or trojan. Cleaning up an existing site without backup is quite difficult. In fact, there are a whole lot of people and companies out there who make a lot of money by cleaning up malware infected websites.

If you got resources, you can probably pay one of these companies or people to clean up your site for you. However, remember that cleaning up your site from malware does not mean that they will guarantee that it won’t happen again.

In some cases users may even lose their data. In a malicious hack attempt, hackers could wipe out their site, delete files, change passwords, steal information, and damage their reputation.

Without a backup it will be very stressful to revert back your site to normal.

There are several ways you can backup a WordPress site. Most WordPress sites are regularly updated and are setup with their own set of plugins, themes, and settings. Backing them all up manually can be a very time consuming task.

To solve this problem there are several tools and plugins that you can use to completely automate the WordPress backup process.

VaultPress is a WordPres backup solution developed by Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com blog hosting service). It is a monthly subscription based service with plans starting from $9/month.

After signing up for a plan you will need to install VaultPress plugin which will connect your WordPress site to the VaultPress servers. You will also need to provide FTP or SSH credentials to use the easy restore feature.

VaultPress automatically backups everything on your site. This includes all your content, settings, themes, and plugins. You can download your backups anytime you want, or restore your site to an earlier backup with just few clicks. VaultPress also scans your site for security vulnerability and can automatically clean most common intrusions.

BackupBuddy is a premium WordPress backup and site restore plugin. Pricing starts from $80 which gives you access to one year of free support and updates. BackupBuddy is very easy to use and set up, even for new users. Upon installation you will be taken to a simple setup wizard.

With BackupBuddy you can automatically create backups of your website on a pre-defined schedule. You can also store those backups to Dropbox, Amazon S3, FTP, or email them to yourself.

It also comes with a site migration tool which allows you to easily move a WordPress site from one host to a new host or from one domain to another. Restoring your site from an earlier backup is also straight forward.

BackWPup is a Free WordPress backup plugin with a paid version as well. The free version would work most blogs and small business websites. As a free plugin it provides a very reliable alternative to paid subscription based services or premium plugins. The only downside is that support is limited and not as good as the paid version. If you like the free version, please consider upgrading to the paid version.

You can easily schedule automatic backups for your WordPress site and store them on your Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, or other cloud storage services. You can also store your backups on your own server or email them to yourself.

Hopefully this article explained why it is so important to backup your WordPress sites and how to do that. Backing up your site is the first step in the overall security of your WordPress site.

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