WordPress Backup, Backing Up Your WordPress Site

WordPress Backup, Backing Up Your WordPress Site Introduction

Did you know that your WordPress database contains every post, every comment and every link you have on your blog. If your database gets erased or corrupted, you stand to lose everything your WordPress site contains. There are many reasons why this could happen and not all are within your control. Luckily, with a proper backup of your WordPress database and files, you can quickly restore things back to normal.

• WordPress site backups are essential because problems inevitably occur and you need to be in a position to take action when disaster strikes.
• A backup is only as good as its restore strategy. Test your restoration process.
• Automated backup and scheduling preferred to prevent human error.
• Do not store the archive or backup near the original. Disasters such as fire, flood and theft are likely to damage all at the same time.

Backup Advice

How Often Should You Backup Your WordPress Site?

In answer to the question, how often should you make a complete backup of your WordPress site, I would say, whenever you make substantial changes to the site files, i.e., WordPress, plugins and themes.

In other words, there is no need to backup the complete site if you’ve only updated WordPress a couple of times and maybe some of the plugins. If on the other hand you have substantially changed which plugins and/or themes you use, then backup immediately after the changes are complete.

How Often Should You Backup Your Database?

To answer the question, how often you should backup your database, you need to decide how much of your data you are willing to lose. If, like me, you write your posts using a word processor and save the post to your local drive prior to uploading to your blog then the loss of the WordPress database and ten or so new posts is not so important.

• The more important the data, the greater is the need for backing up the data.

With a reasonably recent backup and the word processor files you can restore the data, so the loss of the database is more of an inconvenient time waster. You will of course be unable to restore any messages lost.

How Many Backups Should You Keep?

My general rule of thumb is to keep at least three backups and keep them in three different places and/or forms if possible.

I usually keep the last three backups on my computers hard drive, plus an external USB drive. I also keep a daily, weekly and monthly copy on the JustHost Server.

• When I’m making substantial changes to the blog I also put a backup of the complete site onto DVDs.

The more alternative backups you have the fewer problems you’ll encounter should a single backup become corrupted or damaged.

How to Reduce the Size of Your Database Backups

The first thing I do to reduce the size of the database is clear the spam and trash data.

• Dashboard > Comments > Spam, Trash

Next any anti-spam and statistics data gathered by plugins can be deleted. Statistical plugins can add large amounts of data because they are constantly gathering information. When backing up the database, decide if you really need this data. If not, do not mark those tables for backup when selecting them during the backup process or simply delete the data prior to backup.

Can Database Backups be Automated?

WordPress database backups can be automated. Various plugins exist to make automatic scheduled backups of your WordPress database. This helps to manage your backup strategy more easily. You can find various automatic backup plugins in the WordPress Plugins Directory.

So why not skip the hard stuff and automate the backup process? Answer, just in case! Personally, I’ve had one or two bad experiences with several automated backup plugins. One problem in particular is the size of the backup file. If this is greater than your allow email limit then you cannot receive the backup via email.

• Even if you use a plugin to automate your backups, I highly recommend you manually backup once in a while to just to confirm the backup process is working.

Backing Up Your WordPress Site

There are two parts to complete backup of your WordPress site:

• File backup, and
• Database backup.

Your WordPress site consists of the following:

1. WordPress Core Installation
2. WordPress Plugins
3. WordPress Themes
4. Images and Files
5. JavaScript, PHP scripts, and other code files
6. Additional Files and Static Web Pages
7. MySQL database

All of these items are used to generate your website. The database (7) contains your posts and the data generated on your site, but it does not include elements 1 through 6. These need to be saved independently.

In lots of ways it’s easier to have your server provider, JustHost in my case, backup the entire site and then download a copy (which I do). This, unfortunately, can be quite time consuming and is a lot of data. But it does have the advantage of enabling a complete restore of the server (and ALL your files and data).

• Check with your host provider to find out what services and programs they provide.

Files Backup

Manually backing up your WordPress site files can be done in one of two way:

Method 1: Copy Files to Your Backup Drive

Use an FTP client such as FileZilla and copy all the files from your remote server to a folder on your computer. Once there, you can compress them to save space. You’ll need to copy everything in your WordPress folder, including the WordPress folder.

• Need an FTP client for your Mac? Try Cyberduck, which, like FileZilla is also free and released under the GPL.

Method 2: Create a Local Sync with Your Remote Site

Use WinSCP or a similar program to sync with your remote website to keep a mirror copy of the content on your remote server and local hard drive updated. It saves time and makes sure you have the latest files in both places. (Don’t forget to make a backup as well).

Database Backup using PHPMyAdmin

This will be a very quick session on how to backup your database, for in-depth, detailed instructions see the PHPMyAdmin manual.

On your remote server locate PHPMyAdmin. If using cPanel, just look for the MySQL logo, click it, then select PHPMyAdmin.

• In the left hand panel of PHPMyAdmin select your WordPress database.
• Click the “Export” tab on the top menu.
• Select format as SQL in the drop down box.
• Select, Quick – display only the minimal options.
• Click Go. The data will now be saved to your computer.

Alternatively, as above but…

• Select, Custom – display all possible options.

On the following page accept all the defaults and add the following:

• In Tables select just the table you want.
• Under Output, select the compression you prefer, zipped or gzipped.
• Under, Object creation options, Check the “Add DROP TABLE” box. (This can be useful for over-writing an existing database.)
• Click Go. The data will now be saved to your computer.

WordPress Backup, Backing Up Your WordPress Site Conclusion

Well, I hope you found something useful and enjoyed this article, WordPress Backup, Backing Up Your WordPress Site. Don’t forget to let me have your thoughts in the comment box below. See you soon.