One of the best things about WordPress.org is that it is self-hosted - so you have a lot more flexibility than with other website platforms.
However, that flexibility goes hand-in-hand with more responsibility.
I've had more than one person tell me the story of how they lost their entire website and did not have a backup. With no backup, they were down to re-building their site to get it back.
So one of my personal topics to be a stickler about is the topic of backups, in particular for WordPress websites.
Some WordPress hosts automatically back up your site for you, but there are many other options as well.
Questions to ask your website host:
Q: Does your host automatically back up your site? How often?
Daily automatic backups is preferable.
Q: Can you access the backups?
I prefer being able to restore my site if needed, rather than having to request the host restore my site.
Q: Do you have a simple one-click way to restore your site?
Some backups can be used to restore your site with one-click. Other backups have a more complex process. I prefer simple when possible.
Other Backup Options
Even if your host offers automatic backups for your self-hosted WordPress website, I often prefer to have extra backups.
I’ve had backups fail a few times, so I’m just more comfortable that way.
If your host allows, you can use apps like All-in-One Migration, BackupBuddy, or UpDraft Plus to back up your site.
In addition, some apps will allow you to set backups to occur automatically and even be stored in various locations, such as Google Drive or other cloud-based solutions.
I also use a WordPress management service called ManageWP. For a few dollars a month, I install the ManageWP plugin on my site, connect the plugin to the ManageWP dashboard, and set up daily backups.
How many backups?
For WordPress sites, I recommend at least two automatic backup sources.
Having three backups is best practice and is recommended by WordPress.
For my own sites, I have two automatic backup systems in place: my host backs up my sites every day, and I use ManageWP to back up every day automatically.
For a third backup, I use the All-in-One Migration plugin to download a backup file before I make changes on my sites. While this is manual, it gives me a third option should I need it.
It's not just taking backups, it's having a system for taking backups regularly and even testing your backups if possible. That's safest, and safe websites are my happy place.
