Backing up your WordPress blog.

Backing up digital media is essential.

You may have read my earlier article about backing up computers:

Are you worried about losing the data on your PC?

If you have a blog, or website, it is very important to back up those as well.

One of the key problems with backing up can be the hassle and time involved, which means that it can be ignored, put off, missed or forgotten.

This article will give you some insights into backing up your WordPress blog. Because I use Go Daddy hosting the article will also contain information specific to their service. The article will still be of some value to people hosting elsewhere however.

Before I go on, I will explain why I use Go Daddy hosting.

There are a wide variety of differing opinions about which web hosting company is the best. There are vast multitudes of choices. I have looked into the issue in depth because a key principle of both life and business is to ensure that things are built on a solid basis.

Go Daddy are my first choice for web hosting, despite having been a Webmaster since 1999, trying a large number of alternatives and conducting in-depth research of many more. Many of the alternatives I tried, and found disappointing, were leading companies including Hostgator, Lunar Pages and Superb.

I have personally found Go Daddy support very good and it includes 24-hour, 365 day telephone support. Does your hosting company offer this level of support? If not – why not? Doesn’t your business deserve it?

Go Daddy web hosting plans have excellent features, many of which are free and their control panel is fantastic – intuitive, customer centered and easy to use.

For more information click the link below:

GoDaddy.com Hosting Plans

I like Go Daddy and their offerings so much that I am also a Reseller of their services and have my own site:

DomainsAndWebsiteHosting.com

As you can see, I am happy to be associated with Go Daddy, and to recommend them. Please also see my comments on the Domain Registrations page of my website for more information.

Anyway, back to backing up your blog….

Firstly, it is important to understand that there are two key components to a blog that require backing up:

1) MySQL database – all your posts and comments etc.
2) The blog theme itself – which may include customized files. (You should be backing up these files anyway so as to take care of restoring your customizations when the theme you are using for your blog is updated).

Up until quite recently I have been using the Go Daddy Quick Blogcast service for my blog and have recently changed to WordPress. I have been very pleasantly surprised by how easy Go Daddy have made the blog MySQL Database backup process.

An example is found by visiting this page: http://help.godaddy.com/article/3383

You’ll see that page explains how Go Daddy performs an automated system backup of your database files every night. I always like to verify things, not in the sense that I’m doubting Go Daddy, but from the perspective of checking to see how things work. I was able to easily find the method of restoring the database. Now, I have every confidence in Go Daddy and their backup procedure, however even with the best will in the world things can, and do, go wrong. As the database is such a valuable component, it makes sense to have a separate backup.

One of the reasons I particularly like Go Daddy is that they make things very easy for their customers. It means that we can focus on more important things than “administrivia”. Because I try and seek out a quality straightforward method of getting things done, I was told about a key WordPress plug-in for backing up the database by Martin, one of the really helpful people at the Solostream theme forum. Alistair, also from the Solostream theme forum, was also very helpful. The forum thread can be viewed here.

You can find the plug-in here: WordPress Database Backup

I installed the WordPress Database Backup plug-in and found it very easy to create an additional backup of my database to the one that the Go Daddy system had created. The plug-in makes it very easy to download the backup to your computer, or even e-mail it somewhere as an attachment.

When I was examining the Go Daddy methodology for storing backup I noticed a comment in their help files: “Alternatively, you can upload MySQL database files to _db_backups folder on the root level of the hosting account”. (The same files additionally mention a user activated backup feature within their admin tools, though when I looked at this I realized that using the plug-in would be more straightforward and easier).

Having used the backup plug-in mentioned above, and downloaded the file to my computer (as a Zip file, which I then decompressed), I uploaded the database backup file to the _db_backups folder on the root level of the hosting account. My next step involved checking to see whether I was able to view the additional backup file in the Go Daddy database restore manager. I could indeed see the additional file, alongside the original night-time automated Go Daddy system backup file; which was the only one visible before.

Obviously, for maximum security of backup data, the best policy is to store the database backup created with the plug-in, either on my own computer, or somewhere else other than the Go Daddy hosting account.

Moving on now to backing up the blog theme itself….

To effect this, I quickly created another folder in my Go Daddy hosting account and named it “My Backups” (partly so that it was more obvious that it was a folder I created). I then navigated to my theme folder, which of course contains not just the standard theme but my customized files as well, and quickly copied the (theme) folder to the “My Backups” folder. Once I had done this, I used the quick and easy Go Daddy facility to “Archive” the folder; which created a zip file for me. I was then able to download the zip file of the theme back up to my desktop for secure storage away from the hosting account.

In summary then:

• Go Daddy’s automated nightly system MySQL database backup means that all my critical posts, comments and so on are being automatically backed up. Whilst a customized theme is important, it would be much easier to rebuild from scratch than all my posts, so this automated MySQL backup aspect of Go Daddy’s service is very useful. “Lazy” people, and those who like living “dangerously” could just rely on that I suppose.
• A key WordPress backup plug-in enables quick and easy creation and download of my MySQL database file. (We are not able to directly access the Go Daddy automatic system database file; it can only be used for a restoration).
• A few clicks within my hosting account enables a backup of my theme files (folder), including customizations, to be created and downloaded. Because the WordPress theme does not get altered that often, these files are only backed up on an as needed/changed basis.
• If backing up is difficult, involves hassle, time-consuming or otherwise bothersome, then many people will not do it. Some of course will then go on to regret that decision. It is best to get the foundations right with a simple and efficient method which really works and have one less thing likely to go wrong and cause you major hassle.