Success or Failure If Your Site Comes Down to Backups

If you could identify a single point of failure that can bring any site down it’s backups. Or, rather, a lack of backups.

This failure is easier to repeat than you might think. It’s common to underestimate the importance of backups.

But you can easily rectify this with a good WordPress backup plugin.

In this article, we’re going to highlight the BoldGrid Total Upkeep plugin because it’s ours and we know it well. But more than that, and in keeping with the WordPress philosophy, our backup plugin is free and easy to use and configure.

So we’re going to take a deep dive into the how and why about backups.

You Need a Backup Procedure

There’s no way around this. You need a backup procedure, end of story. The reasons why are clear. The backups can save your site. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated your server software is. The backup protects your work and allows you to instantly return to a working state if a disaster should strike. Having a website brings all kinds of benefits to your business. But benefits always come with risks.

• Hackers can insert hazardous code into your site
• Sometimes, a poorly planned update can cause the site to act badly
• Server failures are rare, but they do happen for unforeseen reasons

If any of these circumstances affected your site, the results could be disastrous. This is how a backup strategy saves you from frustration and heartache.

How Does The Total Upkeep Plugin Work?

First, all you need to do is get a copy and install it. And you do this by following the same installation procedure as you would for any plugin. Once you’ve installed the plugin, you can configure it to match your needs. For example, backups can, and should, be automated. Also, you can pick an ideal time to perform your backups based on your site’s traffic.

Get The Backups Off Your Server

What we’re going for here is redundancy. Being redundant, when it comes to your website, is a good thing. You’ll want to have backups in multiple locations in order to be most effective. Think about it. If you have all of your backups in one spot you’re not protected at all. It some calamity struck this one location, all of your backups would be wiped out. So you need to get a copy of your backup off the server. This can mean getting a copy on your local computer or even another server at a distant location.

With the BoldGrid Backup Plugin you can easily configure remote storage locations like an FTP/SFTP location or an Amazon S3 instance.

Final Thoughts

You can file the importance of backups under your overall site security. Having a backup is just as important as protecting the code of your site itself.

No matter how you slice it, backups are essential for the security and future success of your site.

That’s why we created the BoldGrid Backup Plugin to help facilitate your backup process in the easiest/fastest way possible.

And we’re available if you have any questions or comments. Feel free to leave a comment below or visit the feedback page.