Similar to how your computer is vulnerable to unfortunate events and online threats, so is your website. In fact, websites are more susceptible to online threats.
Beyond taking the required security measures to protect your website, you’ll also want to backup your website often. As a result, if something does happen, you won’t have to start from scratch and deal with the loss of data. Rather, you can simply restore your website from a backup. In this article, we will learn the benefits of using a website backup service and the best ones available in the market.
Reasons You Need to Backup Your Website
It’s difficult to imagine what losing all your website data feels like until you’ve experienced it yourself. Here are three possible outcomes if you do not backup your website.
1. You Could Lose All The Data and Work You’ve Done
Developing a website takes a lot of effort and time, which multiplies when the website has a significant amount of data. Could you imagine losing years of hard work in a single night?
If you don’t have any backups, then you’ll have to build everything from scratch. Or, if you previously hired someone to make customizations to your codebase, you might need to reconsider it all over again.
2. Loss of Website Revenue
If your website has been generating revenue through services, content, or product, then you’ll have to experience the loss of all of it. If it’s based on content, you might need to write everything from scratch. In the case of a retail website, you’ll have to recreate the product images, category pages, and more.
3. Time Consumption During Site Rebuild
Some websites consist of hundreds of blogs, tutorials, and videos that have been running for years. In case you don’t have a proper backup of the website, you will have to produce all of it from scratch.
It must have taken a long time for you to create all the content, product pages, and more, and if you lose it, you will need a few more years just to get back to your starting point. All of this can be avoided with regular website backups.
Selecting the Best Backup Service/ Tools
cPanel Backups
cPanel backups are pretty simple, but there are a few pitfalls to avoid. In case you’re hosting on a server with the cPanel control panel, follow the below steps:
- Log in to your cPanel control panel.
- Click on the “Backup” option.
- Choose “Download a Full Backup.”
- Choose “Home Directory” in “Backup Destination” and enter all the required details before selecting the “Generate/ Download Backup” button.
- You will receive an email once your website has undergone a successful backup.
However, you need to make sure that you download the backup to your device and store it safely. You must do it at regular intervals and keep the backup files in a safe place. If the backup files exist on your server, and if it goes down, you will be left without a backup.
Cloud Backups
Cloud backups are the best way to store your data. It’s ever-expanding and, with the majority of systems, is backed up and superfluous. Given below are some of the perfect cloud solutions for doing backups:
Amazon S3
It is the best cloud solution available in the market. However, getting your data backed into S3 would require you to install the server software, that is, if you have access to do so. If you’re unable to do that, there are a few tools designed to get your data onto S3. For instance, WordPress users who are unable to install software on their server may seek the help of Backup Buddy — a WordPress plugin that backs up to Amazon S3.
Dropbox
While it is not designed to be used this way, Dropbox can act as a great backup tool.
Automated Backup Solutions
Given below are some of the automated backup services, including:
Backup Machine
Backup Machine is a feature-rich backup service that offers free backups alongside automated daily website and database backups.
Codeguard
Although Codeguard offers malware detection services, it also offers manual and automatic website backups.
Dropmysite
Dropmysite connects via FTP and downloads backups. It is important to note that the system doesn’t incrementally back up the files. It just re-downloads the entire website.
The Bottom Line
Backing up a website is critical in today’s environment. When a site that is not backed up gets corrupted, it can cost thousands of dollars to restore and repair it, which is a process that can also take months to complete. Factoring in all the opportunities lost and reputations damaged, this can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the end.
With a powerful website backup service and an experienced web hosting provider, you can secure your website from any potential risks circulating online.
