You should never lose access to your WordPress website or blog or have your site suddenly go offline. But if this happens, an offsite backup can save the day.
How site owners lose access to their WordPress websites
- Your developer quit and they have all the details about the site you were hosting with them. Because they aren’t supporting you anymore, your site is in jeopardy
- Your IT person left and they have all your site’s credentials
- You didn’t pay your web hosting bill and your web host deleted the site
- Your web host shuts down (this happened to me)
- Your web host loses all client backups after a third party messes up (this happened to me)
- Your site gets hacked and the cleanup involves so much work it’s easier to start over
- A rogue plugin messes up your site and there is no going back
What You Can Do
You should regularly back up your data somewhere else. Options, including Dropbox, Google Drive, or even an external drive, ensure you’re covered.
It helps too if your domain and web hosting are in different places. If your backups are scheduled and kept somewhere safe, you can easily and quickly get your site back online.
If you keep your domain and hosting separate you can switch web hosts if you can’t access your hosting. Then you can use a backup to restore your site, point the DNS to the new home and voila, problem solved.
Offsite Backup Benefits
Backups make a difference too if your site is ever hacked. If malware affects your web host’s server, it can damage every file, including your site’s backups.
To keep your website safe, set up a schedule for regular backups. Keep your backups offsite and make they sure they are secure and unaffected by malware. That way, if anything happens at your web host, you’ll be able to restore your site to its pre-hack version.
Doing this will save you from spending hours cleaning up a hacked site. Restore from a clean backup and Google won’t flag your site as suspicious and spammy. This will save you time and money.
Sometimes new plugin updates spell trouble. A major update may not work well with your site. Or there’s a conflict with existing plugins or WordPress Core. Rolling back is a great idea, except sometimes rolling back doesn’t work as expected.
A backup can get your site back to the way it was before you updated the troublesome plugin.
Dangers of Depending on Web Host Backups
If your only existing site backups are on your web host’s server, you better hope nothing happens to them. It’s wiser to keep your own copies of your website – just in case.
If your site is offline and you need WordPress expert website support, give me a shout.
