How to Back Up Your WordPress Site
There’s a good chance that whatever type of website you run, you could use (or are already using) WordPress to power it. WordPress originated as a tool for blogging, but has since developed into a fully-fledged platform for virtually any type of website. In fact, it’s estimated that almost 25% of all new websites that come online each day are powered by WordPress.
Avoid Potential Problems
Even though WordPress is a highly stable platform, problems can and do occur. Your website or blog might be hacked, or your web host might be hacked. If your website is ever compromised, then you’re at risk of losing everything you’ve worked so hard to create. So if you decide to build your blog, or even your business, around a WordPress website, it’s important that you routinely back up your site.
When you back up your WordPress website, two different things should be backed up: your “database,” and your “files.” Your database consists of your posts, along with all pictures and videos you’ve included in your posts, and all the comments readers have made to your posts. Your database also includes pages, custom tags and everything else you’ve created that relates to the substantive content of your WordPress site.
On the other hand, your files consist of all of the themes, plug-ins and other website components that affect the structure, layout and “look and feel” of the site. The backup process will vary slightly depending on whether you use a third party hosting service for your WordPress website, or whether you use the WordPress.com service.
Do You Self-Host?
If you self-host your website, then it’s possible to back up your database manually, using the control panel your web host offers (cPanel is one of the most popular). Simply select “Download a MySQL Database Backup” (or similar option) from your dashboard and choose the database you are using for your site. You can also back up directly by logging on to phpMyAdmin (the most common MySQL interface), selecting your database, selecting all the tables in the database then saving that file to your local computer.
Some users will not feel comfortable interacting with their website in this way, and will instead choose to install the WordPress Database Backup plug-in (or any similar plug-in) to handle the database backup process.
A WordPress plug-in can even automate the process and email the backup file to you each week (or on whatever frequency you choose). Users of the WordPress.com service can either use a plug-in, or go to the “Tools” selection of their WordPress.com dashboard and select the “Export” option.
Back Up Your Files
After you back up the database, you need to back up the files. In order to do so, log in to your web hosting account and navigate to whatever folder your WordPress website is installed in. Download all of the files in that folder to your local computer as a backup.
Because you’ll need to maintain the file structure, and because there will be a lot of files, you’ll need to use an FTP tool to make sure the process goes smoothly. Ask your web host for assistance if you’ve never done this before.
It might take a little bit of time to get the hang of backing up your WordPress site, but it’s time well spent. Having a fresh backup can be invaluable if your website is ever attacked.
