If you have a blog, it's important to create a manual backup from time to time. This way, if anything happens at the server or host level, your content is not lost forever! Here is the simple 2 step method for creating and saving a manual backup of your site.
Most of us trust our hosting company to keep a backup of our sites, in case of emergency.
While 9 times out of 10 this method is going to be fine, when you are the 1 that has an issue it can be catastrophic!
In the last 2 weeks, I've had 3 blogging friends (almost) lose everything they have ever done on their sites.
Every post. Every picture. Everything.
One was due to a malware hack that got in through a plugin, one was user error that resulted in a corrupted source code, and the other had a failed credit card payment (due to a compromise) which caused her host to drop her domain!
You never think it's going to happen to you... until it does. So, today I'm going to help you prepare!
It hurts me to think of you losing all your hard work and potential income, whether your blog is 1 week old, or you have 1,000's of posts!
This is how you can backup your entire site and keep it on your local computer (and a secondary location) for emergencies!
Exactly How to Safely Backup Your Entire Site
While you can use a plugin to do this, plugins don't always work well.
In fact, I was testing a few backup plugins recently and every single one failed to back up my site fully due to the size.
Keep in mind, I only have 300ish posts, so it's not a huge site!
A plugin might work if you have a very small site, but eventually you're going to need to know how to do it manually, which is what I'm going to teach you now!
Plus, any plugin that you add to your site, especially one that is performing daily actions of this size, WILL slow your site down.
Save the space on your server and do a manual backup instead!
Step One: Backup Site Files
Here, you are going to backup all the files that make your site look and run the way it does right now.
Theme settings, plugins, and so on are all going to be stored within this step of the backup process.
Navigate to the File Manager section (or FTP) of your hosting account. This is going to be different for each host, but I'm doing to walk you through finding it on Siteground (which is the hosting company I *highly* recommend)
Within your Siteground account, go to Websites >> Site Tools >> Site >> File Manager
1. Select the wp-admin, wp-content, and wp-includes folders by holding down the shift button and clicking on each one ONCE.
2. Hit the archive button and name your archive with your site name and current date. Such as: AModernHomestead-10-9-19-Backup
3. After you finalize the archive, a zip file is created by that name. Select the created zip file and download it to your computer.
NOTE: If you don't have a file manager and have to use FTP access instead, this process is the same. Select those files and download them to a backup folder on your computer.
Step Two: Backup Databases
This step is where you back up all the content that you have created over the years!
Every post, comment, image, recipe, and more are all stored within the databases for your site.
Without this step your site will look right (theme) but will be lacking ALL of your content!
Navigate to the phpMyAdmin section of your hosting account.
For Siteground, go to Websites >> Site Tools >> Site Tools >> MySQL >> PHPMYADMIN (tab) >> Access phpMyAdmin
1. Make sure your database is selected. It will contain the database that ends in "_posts".
If you have more than one site, you can click the posts database to see the content stored there. BE CAREFUL, you don't want to change or delete anything in that file. But you can take a quick peek to make sure you are backing up the correct database and then close it without making changes.
2. Click "Export". This will bring you to the export options. Click "custom" and change the drop down next to "Compression" to "zipped".
Leave everything else unchanged and click "go". Name your backup in the same manner as above (AModernHomestead-10-9-19-Database-Backup) and save it to your computer.
That's it! You've successfully backed up your entire site manually! Well done!
When to Backup Your Site
I like to back up regularly (every week at least) AND before any major changes.
So, if you are installing a new theme, messing with your core theme files (functions.php for example), removing dates from your URLs, and anything else beyond adding a new post, you should take a few minutes and back everything up.
It really only takes about 5 minutes total and can save you WEEKS of headaches and frustrations!
Correctly Storing Your Backup
Now that you have everything all backed up, you will want to have it in at least 2 places. I like to keep one on my computer, one on my husband's computer, AND another one on a cd/dvd backup or external hard drive (whatever you have access to).
Create a folder for your backups and keep at least a month of backups at all times.
Why keep old backups?
Because if you have a backup that was corrupted without your knowledge, you may need to go back further to find a safe version to restore.
This might mean that you lose a few days or even a week of work, but it is far better than losing your entire site!
Restoring From Your Backups
In the event that you have an issue that requires backup from your manually created files, your host can help you add the files correctly. Each host is different and I don't want to cause issues for you by giving you directions that won't work for your particular host.
However, having them on hand yourself will allow to you pass them off to your host or a web developer in the event that they are needed!
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You have homework today. I don't usually do this, but PLEASE backup your site TODAY.
It only takes a few minutes, and is well worth the peace of mind that it brings.
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