Creating a backup of your website is important
It’s important for every website to have a sound backup plan. Sometimes a simple, small mistake can lead to a site becoming inaccessible. In these cases having a backup can save you a lot of headaches and stress. Luckily there are a number of WordPress plugins that can create automated backups of your website. For a strong backup policy, we recommend automating backups. Automating backups is a good way to make sure you always have a backup available. Setting up automated backups is a one-time process that will greatly benefit you if you ever need to restore your website.
It is also one of the ways with which you can protect yourself from hacks: if your site is hacked, and you have a backup you can restore quickly, you can then investigate the matter in your own time. Of course, you will need to fix the weakness, but it’s better to lock down a clean backup than trying to remove hacked code.
Automated backup solutions for WordPress
Thanks to the WordPress plugin ecosystem there are a number of automated backup solutions available for WordPress. A reliable backup solution we like is UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus has a lot of default backup options. You can choose to create a backup every 4, 8, or 12 hours, daily, weekly, or monthly: or completely customize the backup schedule. UpdraftPlus also has the ability to create manual backups if that is what you prefer. It also offers extended support for WordPress multisite environments where you can backup and restore per site.
Another highly-rated WordPress plugin that is capable of automated backups is Duplicator. There’s also a premium version, Duplicator Pro. The pro offers full multisite features, options for large databases and files, and automated backups. Duplicator requires a little more technical knowledge to use than UpdraftPlus. Do note that the automated backup function is only available in the pro version of Duplicator. The advantage of Duplicator is that you don’t need a running WordPress install to restore the site. You can restore from scratch.
Creating a single copy of your site
In some cases you want to create a single copy of your site, for example when moving a website from one hosting provider to another, or when moving a live website to a test environment. Whatever the reason, there are a number of WordPress plugins that allow you to easily do this. UpdraftPlus premium has the ability to easily clone a website for migration purposes. A commonly used tool is the Duplicator plugin. Duplicator allows you to easily create a copy of your website and install it on another server by using a very simple PHP installation script that can automatically update your database settings to match the new domain, saving you a lot of time and effort.
Start creating backups today
In short, it’s essential for every WordPress site to have a solid backup strategy. If you don’t employ it yet, start today! Having a sound backup plan can save you a lot of time and money in the future.
