Who among us isn’t constantly looking for ways to simplify tasks in order to save time and energy? If you’re running your own website, one way to simplify a task is by using a WordPress automatic backup plugin.
Having a backup of your website is a great insurance policy against disasters — namely hackers, network crashes, or even something as simple as an error on your part. (You would be amazed at how many times people accidentally delete necessary files while trying to add some feature or do an upgrade.)
If someone or something should take your website down or corrupt the files that run it, then you can use your backup to quickly and easily restore it to its last saved point. Let’s take a look at just how an automatic backup can benefit you:
Plugins
One of the easiest ways to automatically back up your website is with a WordPress automatic backup plugin. With any such plugin, including the popular VaultPress and UpdraftPlus plugins, you simply have to do some basic configurations on the front end when you set it up. Generally speaking, this includes the following points:
- Defining what type of files you want to be backed up. Generally, you will want to back up both your core files and your database files regularly. But a good plugin will allow you to customize exactly which files you want to backup.
- Defining how often you want these files backed up. For incredibly busy sites, you can back the files up every few hours, but this is not recommended for the average site. In general, you can choose from options such as daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. If you update your content daily, then choose a daily backup. Otherwise, you can schedule these less frequently.
- Defining how many backups to save. The problem with saving a backup of your website is that the files and databases can take up huge amounts of drive space on your computer. So you really don’t want to keep every single backup. These automatic plugins will overwrite the backups after the limit has been reached.
For instance, if you have it set at two backups, then the first one will be deleted when you back the site up for the third time. In general, we recommend setting the number of backups at no less than two, but no more than five.
- Defining where to save the files. You also don’t want to save your website backups to your network server as this can slow your site’s performance. Instead, choose a plugin that allows you to save to a cloud-based server such as Dropbox or Google Drive. Either of these is a good option for allowing you to back up and store your files safely.
- Defining the time for backups. You can also decide exactly what time you want the backup automatically performed. Ideally, you would do this during off-hours when your web traffic is slower. In addition, you can also have your plugin send you an email notification letting you know that the backup has been performed.
Get Your Automatic Backups Up and Running
Once you’ve made these decisions, then performing a backup or restoration with a WordPress automatic backup plugin is as easy as clicking a button. But you can also opt to use a web-hosting service that automatically backs up your files for you. In this case, you would use a managed hosting provider that provides full support. However, you will pay extra for this service.