How often should you back up your WordPress site? The answer may surprise you!
Your business depends on your website. If something happens to it, you can lose your web traffic, your revenue, and more. It’s very important to have your WordPress site backed up frequently, so let’s take a look at how often you should do this and what kind of backups you should be making.
There are many types of backups
a database backup (which includes all your post data and settings), file backups, and a plugin called wp-snapshot that will create an XML file of everything on your website. File backups are very important in case something happens to your database. You also need to make a copy of any theme or plugin files you’ve modified – either locally on your computer or in some other secure location. This will allow you to restore them if they become corrupted in some way.
Automated Backups
There’s a simple solution to backing up your WordPress files and database. By using a third-party plugin like UpdraftPlus, you can schedule automated backups. Many people mistakenly believe that if they don’t have any posts or pages published on their website, there isn’t anything important to protect; but that simply isn’t true. A backup of a fresh installation of WordPress is essentially nothing but an empty shell.
Manual Backups
If you’re using a self-hosted version of WordPress, or if you installed it on a VPS without a backup plugin, I highly recommend taking manual backups regularly. This will ensure that all of your content is properly backed up in one location. Of course, even with regular backups, all data can still be wiped clean with a single mistake on your part, so it’s important to have proper security measures in place as well.
Online vs Local Backups
Backing Up Your Site Online: When it comes to backups, there are two kinds of solutions—online and local. However, if you choose to use an online solution (such as a cloud-based storage service), that doesn’t mean there is no longer a need for a backup copy on your own computer. An online backup works fine until something happens at the provider’s end—then, poof! You’re left without a backup.
