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The Importance of Backing Up Your WordPress Website

The Importance of Backing Up Your WordPress Website

WordPress is such a user-friendly, secure and easy to use platform, it’s easy to feel like nothing bad can ever happen to us there. But unfortunately, that’s not always true. Hackers, DDOS attacks, data theft, server outages…so much can actually go wrong. A carefully planned and executed WordPress backup can protect you from losing your valuable work and ultimately losing your good night’s sleep. And yet, an alarming number of users neglects this.

The simple truth is that, whatever you do, you should always, always backup your WordPress site. Let’s take a look at a couple of reasons why.

Backup as a Form of Insurance

You have insurance for your car, your home and other valuables. What’s the purpose of insurance? To protect you in case something goes wrong and to make up for your loss. Bad things happen in life, no matter how careful we are. Sometimes the things just get out of our hands and we’re stuck in a situation wishing we did something to prevent it.

WordPress backups are pretty much the same thing. It’s a form of insurance that protects your data, your content and other website assets in case of an accident, a mistake or a mishap.

Imagine crafting your blog meticulously and painstakingly, for weeks or perhaps months. You pick a terrific theme, install all the right plugins, connect your social profiles and fill your site with top-notch, engaging content and boom! All of a sudden, a hacker attack happens and you lose everything. Or do you? If you have backup, you don’t. You get to keep everything and, once the incident is sorted out, you pick up right where you left.

What Can Go Wrong?

If you are among those thinking “WordPress is safe, my server is solid, I don’t need a backup,” let’s take a look at a couple of things that can go wrong and make you rue the day you thought you didn’t need backup.

  • Hacker Attacks

Hacker attacks are among those things we often think only happen to others. The reality is, hacker attacks are incredibly common and, contrary to the popular belief, can target anyone, not just big websites, large companies and blogs with tons of traffic.

Hackers may attack your website with ransomware, redirect visitors to third websites, place unwanted ads, replace your banners or target your mailing list with spam mail. The result of all these scenarios is pretty much the same – your website gets blacklisted and you become virtually invisible.

The trouble with hacker attacks is that you may not even notice them. Hackers use malware, which is nowadays pretty sophisticated. The malware may, for instance, overwrite one of your theme files and insert malicious code, and so on.

Even if you’re using the latest and the most advanced security plugins, when it comes to malware and hackers, you’re never 100% safe from harm.

  • Server Issues

No matter how reliable hosting companies claim to be, no company can offer 100% protection from server outages. Even the best servers crash and go through downtime, and this always has a significant impact on websites. Downtime is certainly bad for traffic, but it’s also a concern from the data loss point of view.

Sure, a server outage can’t wipe out your entire website, but if you don’t have regular and frequent WordPress backups, it can set you back to an older version of your site, causing you to lose all work you’ve done in between.

  • Human Error

Even the most experienced WordPress bloggers sometimes make mistakes. After all, it’s what makes us human, right? It takes just one click of the mouse to permanently delete a vital file or folder, and compromise the integrity of the entire website. These things happen when we work too much, when we’re exhausted or unfocused due to multitasking. And more effort we invest in our websites, the more likely we’re going to make a mistake. Sometimes, it’s a minor thing that doesn’t really cause any problems, but it can also be a devastating error causing us to lose tons of files and data.

  • Unforeseen Circumstances

Power outage, mechanical damage, fire, flood, theft, hard disk crash…there are tons of incidents and accidents that can happen to our system and cause damage to our WordPress blog. Each of these instances commonly comes with data loss, in many cases – for good. And, what’s worse, these are the things we can’t really foresee, at least not completely. Therefore, we can’t effectively prevent them. But there’s one thing we can do, and that is to create a proper WordPress backup and protect our assets.

…And That’s Why You Need WordPress Backup!

Take any of the scenarios listed above into consideration and you’re sure going to  feel a streak of cold sweat running down your spine. Losing valuable website data is a nightmare for any WordPress blogger and website admin. So the question is not “Why do I need WordPress backup” but rather “Why don’t I have a backup system in place yet?”

There is one more situation in which it is better to have a backup, and that is if you decide to delete your WordPress blog for good. Even if you’re super-resolute and can’t imagine ever wanting to get it back after deleting it, who knows – you might still change your mind. In that case, you’ll be glad you made a backup.

Regardless of your site’s traffic, size and scope, you do need backup. Everyone does. It’s common sense and good practice and there’s really no excuse for ignoring this.

Some users rely on hosting companies for backups. The problem with this is that hosting companies perform backups on their own schedule, which doesn’t necessarily have to coincide with your needs. In case something goes wrong, you may end up with a version recovered from a few days or weeks ago, and if that’s not good enough for you, you really don’t have anyone to blame but yourself.

You need to have your own, automated and 100% reliable WordPress backup solution. Also, it’s okay to back up to your computer, but it’s definitely recommended to use an external service, just to be safe.

So get out there, pick one of the excellent backup solutions for your WordPress website and protect your assets today. You’ll be glad you did.

We hope this article was helpful. If you liked it, feel free to check out some of these articles as well!

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