{"id":6926,"date":"2021-09-08T09:02:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T14:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/?p=6926"},"modified":"2021-09-30T14:21:08","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T19:21:08","slug":"backing-website-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/backing-website-important\/","title":{"rendered":"How (& Why) to Back Up Your Website"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hopefully you\u2019re already in the 80% of people <\/a>who know to keep a computer backup (if not, right now is a good time to start). Too many computer owners have learned the hard way how important it is to create regular backups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But do you do the same for your website? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technology may be capable of amazing things, but it\u2019s still fallible. And no one wants to risk losing all your digital files in a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about the hard work you put into creating your website. Wouldn\u2019t losing everything you\u2019ve created be a significant loss? Well, a website is at least as vulnerable to threats as a computer is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investing in regular backups is one important step you can take to protect your website<\/a>. That way, if something unfortunate does occur, you won\u2019t have to start from scratch. You can simply restore your site from a previous backup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is a Website Backup Service?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A website backup is a copy of all of your website data. What the backup storage encompasses will depend upon your online backup provider. As a general rule of thumb, the more data that\u2019s included in the data backup, the better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is especially the case if your website runs on a content management system<\/a> like WordPress, where you\u2019ll need all of your site\u2019s files, content, media, and databases to get it up and running again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"cms<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

How Often Should You Back Up Your Website?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Website backups should also be done on a regular basis, just like computer backups. The best case scenario is either daily or weekly backups, or around as often as you update your website. For example, if you only publish a single blog post per week and that\u2019s the only update you make to your site, then weekly backups will suffice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why You Need to Backup Your Site<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Backing up your site is the only way to ensure you\u2019re protected from losing all the work you\u2019ve put into it. And losing your website can have big consequences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have to build a new website from scratch, you lose the time and cost involved in creating an all new site. That\u2019s not a small thing. And if your website had a lot of pages or an active blog, you may be unable to recreate some of the content you worked hard on-a portion of your website could end up being gone for good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you run a business site, then you’re losing revenue for the entire time your site is offline. For an ecommerce business, the losses could be huge, as no one will be able to make purchases at all until you get it back up. For a service provider, a broken website at best makes you look unprofessional, and could also lose you potential clients that can\u2019t find your business while it\u2019s down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of the consequences in time and money, you have to deal with all the stress, frustration, and embarrassment of solving an avoidable emergency. The emotional cost of losing your website without a backup may be harder to measure, but shouldn\u2019t be discounted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Website Backup Services Work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Website backup services ensure backing up your website requires very little work, many of them by making the process automatic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Websites have a lot of moving parts and a variety of files required just for your website to load the right way. Forget to backup a crucial file and your website might not load properly. If you\u2019ve ever played around with the code of your own website, then you\u2019re probably familiar with how changing a single line of code can bring your website offline. Yeah, not fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you use an online backup service, you don\u2019t have to worry about individually backing up each website element and file yourself. The service does it automatically in the background. This helps to ensure that every single file is included in the backup, and you can restore your site with a simple click if the need arises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You need only choose your online website backup service of choice, configure it to your website, and choose the frequency. The application will run in the background, silently backing up your website\u2019s data to your preferred guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3 Benefits of Using an Online Backup Service<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

An online backup service makes your life easier and your website safer in a few main ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Backups Are Effortless<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When you use a service that creates automatic backups, it removes the work entirely from your to-do list. You can trust that all new changes and updates to your website are being quietly backed up, while you focus on the main work of running your website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, backing your website up manually to a hard drive is something you have to remember to do-which makes it easy for busy people to forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Enhanced Security Protocols<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re manually backing up your site<\/a> and using a basic storage solution, your levels of security won\u2019t be as high as those a cloud backup solution provides. An HDD backup can open your files up to risks like data corruption, storage malfunction, and physical damage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online backup services not only have multiple layers of security to protect your files, but they\u2019ll be stored on redundant servers. This means that copies of your site\u2019s files are stored across multiple physical servers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Speedy Site Recovery<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest benefits of using an online backup service is being able to restore your site to a previous version in an instant. With quick website recovery and data restoration times it\u2019ll be like your site never took any damage in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of online backup services will also offer technical assistance for restoring your site or even have one-click recovery options. This is a must-have for website owners who don\u2019t want to go through the technical process of restoring their sites themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Backup Your Website<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Now that you\u2019re thoroughly convinced on the why of backing up your website (you are, right? you should be), you need to know the how. The details of how to backup your website will depend on the service you choose for doing so. Here\u2019s a walkthrough for a few popular options. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Back Up Your Website Using cPanel<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Many web hosting plans come with cPanel (if you have a HostGator plan, yours definitely does). If you don\u2019t want to pay for an online service, cPanel gives you a way to manually create backups<\/a>-you just have to remember to go in and take these steps on a regular basis. Consider creating a calendar alert so you actually remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Log into your cPanel account.<\/li>
  2. Scroll down to the Files section, and select Backup.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    \"how<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    1. Click on the button that says 'Download a Full Account Backup'\u009d. You also have options to backup specific sections of your website, if you want a faster process.<\/li>
    2. Choose the destination where you want your backup to go, and fill in your email address.<\/li>
    3. When your backup is ready, you\u2019ll receive an email and see your backup listed in the 'Backups Available for Download'\u009d section. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
      \"generate<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

      If you prefer a video to written instructions, just watch this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n