It's not uncommon for website owners to not take backups seriously until something goes wrong. It's a hard lesson they never forget. If you're smart, you'll get into the habit of backing up your website from the start.
In this article, we are going to look at why backing up your WordPress website is so important.
Server crashes
No hosting company in the world can offer 100% uptime on a russian virtual mobile number reliable basis. Even the best WordPress hosting companies have had serious issues with their data centers. Customers may experience irregular downtime and issues during this time for days.
There are a number of reasons why a server might go down. In 2007, for example, RackSpace lost power completely when a truck crashed into one of its power generators. Other outages have been caused by things like software bugs, hard drive failures, or a change in the server's structure.
When a server goes down, the hosting company is usually (but not always) able to recover your data. However, even if your website data can be recovered, you may have to revert to a version of your website that is a few days old. So, if your hosting company goes down, you could lose a few days of work.
WordPress websites are vulnerable to hackers
WordPress is by far the most widely used content management system for publishing content online. Perhaps that's why it's such a frequent target for hackers and spammers. According to research , 39% of hacked WordPress websites were using an outdated version of the software. Even if you use a security plugin on your website, there's still a risk that a malicious script could inject malware or a virus into your website.
You may not even know that someone has infected your website. A common technique hackers use is to overwrite one of your template files with their own code. This allows them to do a number of different things, such as using your website to send thousands of spam emails. As a result, your server will be blacklisted by spam monitors and none of the emails you send from your website will be received.
No matter how much experience you have: Mistakes happen
Even experienced website owners who have been working online for several years make mistakes from time to time. The wrong files can be overwritten or deleted. Or a simple MySQL command with a small mistake can cause a lot of data to be updated erroneously.
Also check: How to Hire a WordPress Developer
Errors don't happen every day, but when they do, you'll be glad you have recent backups.
You cannot rely solely on your hosting company for backups
Many website hosting companies offer daily or weekly backups of your website. In case something goes wrong, this allows you to get a copy of the last working version of your website. Most hosting companies can restore the entire website to a point where it was working properly. Please note that shared hosting plans may not always offer this feature, as there are hundreds of websites hosted on the same server.
Daily website backups are performed by the hosting company, but it is dangerous to rely solely on the hosting company as your only backup solution. Hosting companies' backup systems are always internal. As noted above, hosting companies can experience outages due to power issues, disk drive failures, and more. So if your backup is hosted at the same location, your backup can also be lost during an outage.
Be smart and backup often
It's important to back up your websites regularly. Backing up your files on your personal computer every day isn't always practical, especially if your website uses a lot of storage space. A more practical solution is to use an external service to back up your files.
There are a number of WordPress backup plugins that will backup a compressed version of your website to your server. There is no real benefit to doing this if your hosting company offers daily backups, as the backup file will be stored on your main hosting package. Therefore, if your website goes offline, you will not be able to access the backup file.
I recommend using BackupBuddy to backup your WordPress site. It allows you to automatically schedule your backups and store them directly in the cloud. You can also check out our list of expert-picked WordPress backup plugins for more options.
Don't be fooled into thinking that because nothing bad has happened to your website in the past, nothing bad will happen in the future. Incidents often happen when you least expect them. When they do occur, you'll quickly discover that they're time-consuming, stressful, and costly. Be smart and back up your WordPress website frequently. You'll be glad you did.