Unless you are paying hundreds of dollars a month for a dedicated server, chances are your website is one of many on a single server in a data center somewhere.
Most hosting plans have some sort of backup service included, but typically is it a network backup, and it is not usually carried out on a daily basis.
Many website owners simply do not believe anything will go wrong with their website server and believe the hosting company will just restore the server if there is ever any problem.
Remember, a server is a computer that runs 24/7. It is prone to mechanical problems and software issues that can affect your website.
What Can Go Wrong With a Server?
Since 1995, I have worked with over 25 different hosting companies, and I have experienced my share of server disasters.
Several years ago, a highly destructive worm virus attacked the network of my hosting company, quickly infecting several servers and affecting thousands of websites. The network administrator had to wipe all the server hard drives to eradicate the worm.
This took well over a day, and when the network administrator went to restore the servers and websites using their backup tapes that were several weeks old, the worm was present on the backup tapes as well.
Several of my affected websites were static websites, so I easily restored them from my developer version of the website, which was on my network computer.
However, two of my websites used WordPress and everything was gone. From the website template to all the articles and blogs, it was all ancient history.
It took my hosting company two days to get their servers back up and running. I had several two very unhappy clients and I was very upset with myself for not planning for a disaster.
Needless to say, I moved on to another website hosting company, and I developed a backup strategy for my websites and for my clients that I use to this day.
Backup Basics
I have three rules about backing up:
1. Make regular full website backups through your Cpanel
2. Download your backups from the server to your computer network
3. Make backups daily, weekly or monthly, depending on how frequently your website content changes.
Using Cpanel
I like to use hosting companies that offer what is called Cpanel hosting. Cpane is a control panel that will let you easily make daily, weekly or monthly backups of your entire website. Most hosting companies that offer Linux hosting will usually offer Cpanel.
To make a backup, you simply log into your website by going to: http://www.YouWebSite.com/cpanel
Once you login using your User ID and Password, you go to Backups and make a Full Backup.
A Full Backup is everything on the server, including all your email accounts, databases, public HTML files, sub directories, log files everything is backed up.
Downloading Full Backups
Full backups are stored on your server. Never just leave there on your server. If your server has a failure, your backup can be lost. You can easily download the backup to your own computer or a computer on your network for safe keeping.
Full backups are large, compressed files. Many hosting companies running Cpanel can take your backup file and fully restore your website in just a few minutes.
Restoring
Restoring a website from a full backup is very simple. You contact your website hosting company s support department, explain your situation and they can guide you on were to send the backup file and they will take care of the rest of the process.
Other Reasons for Backing Up
A hard drive on your server can fail or database files can become corrupt. A backup can make it easy and relatively painless to restore your website.
Before I make a major website update or before I make an upgrade to my website application, I make a full backup just in case something goes wrong.
If I am unhappy with a hosting provider, or if a website outgrows a hosting plan, I can take a recent backup and move my website to another hosting provider, restore the website, then re point my domain to the new hosting company.
How Often Should You Backup Your Website?
This depends on how active your website and how often your content changes. Ecommerce websites, which have new content daily should be backed up daily. You do not want to lose order information.
Blog websites or social network websites which have new members signing up daily should also be backed up daily.
If your website content changes infrequently, a weekly or monthly backup may be fine.
Author Resource:
Robert Goodwin has worked as a web designer since 1997 on a many web-based business applications and website projects. Robert currently consults with businesses regarding internet strategy and website design, and contributes articles at http://www.expert-website-design.com
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