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.<\/p>\r\n
However, that flexibility goes hand-in-hand with more responsibility.<\/p>\r\n
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.<\/p>\r\n
So one of my personal topics to be a stickler about is the topic of backups, in particular for WordPress websites.<\/p>\r\n
Some WordPress hosts automatically back up your site for you, but there are many other options as well.<\/p>\r\n
Q: Does your host automatically back up your site? How often?<\/p>\r\n
Daily automatic backups is preferable.<\/p>\r\n
Q: Can you access the backups?<\/p>\r\n
I prefer being able to restore my site if needed, rather than having to request the host restore my site.<\/p>\r\n
Q: Do you have a simple one-click way to restore your site?<\/p>\r\n
Some backups can be used to restore your site with one-click. Other backups have a more complex process. I prefer simple when possible.<\/p>\r\n
Even if your host offers automatic backups for your self-hosted WordPress website, I often prefer to have extra backups.<\/p>\r\n
I’ve had backups fail a few times, so I’m just more comfortable that way.<\/p>\r\n
If your host allows, you can use apps like All-in-One Migration, BackupBuddy, or UpDraft Plus to back up your site.<\/p>\r\n
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.<\/p>\r\n
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.<\/p>\r\n
For WordPress sites, I recommend at least two automatic backup sources.<\/p>\r\n
Having three backups is best practice and is recommended by WordPress.<\/p>\r\n
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.<\/p>\r\n
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.<\/p>\r\n
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.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n