Blog Backup is one of the least talked about activity in the blogging world. Most of the bloggers might not have proper backup routine for their blog and many of them might not have a single backup.
It is something which we do not require in regular blogging work but can regret of not having it when in need. It is like a insurance policy which is only used when required but when required, not having it is a worst crime you can commit.
I have learned this in a hard way, you can check my post on what you can take from worst day at your blog.
Though I was able to convert a bad day into a fruitful day but this does not undermine my failure to take a proper backup of my blog, which could have saved those hours for me.
How to setup automatic blog backup
The tool which I use for my blog backup is Backupbuddy.
This is an tool for blog backup and restore. One bottleneck for backup is a manual work involved and with this tool you can schedule automatic backups.
Here is what happens at most of my blogs – An automatic backup happens on a scheduled manner, that backup file automatically gets uploaded to my Dropbox account and from there gets synced on all my devices.
So I will always have a backup available at many places and it’s just a onetime effort in preparation of the worst. Backupbuddy makes it really easy to setup a scheduled backup for your blog.
You just need to enter frequency and type of backup, and you will be ready to take the backup automatically.
Sending Blog Backup at Remote Location
Along with the schedule, you can also define remote location for the backup. I use Dropbox for my remote location because the free account gives 2GB of account and if you want additional 500MB, you can signup for Dropbox account by this link.
If you need more space than you can try CX.com for free 10GB cloud space.
Backupbuddy can connect at many different remote locations and can upload your backup automatically. You can connect your remote location once and while scheduling backup, you can just attach it to that remote location.
After each backup your backup file will be automatically uploaded to the remote location. Isn’t it convenient?
Restoring the Blog Backup
If you can’t restore your backup easily than there is no use of that backup and Backupbuddy makes restore process really easy. It is almost like a one click restore and you don’t even need to reinstall WordPress.
To restore you just need to delete everything and run a script to restore your blog, it restores your plugin, setting, post, pages and everything which you had previously.
The same process is good for migrating your blog to any other place including your localhost. Once your blog is gets bigger, it’s hard to do changes on live blog.
You may want to keep a local copy of your blog to test your changes and Backupbuddy is a good way to copy your blog to localhost.
Backupbuddy is one of the handy tool to do your blog backup and restore work and one of the must have plugin for your blogging business. How are you taking your blog’s backup?
Backups are really important for your blog. The need for them is not really appreciated till you lose your site and all of the data from it.
I just recently really dug down and configured a very good backup service to take care of that for me.
Backup is one of those things that needs to be done very frequently. Last thing one needs is everything disappearing all of a sudden.
I’ve been using Dropbox till now but I’m contemplating switching to Google Drive (simply because I’m in love with Google, lol). I also keep back ups on an external hard drive.
Hello Sanjeev can you tell me the procedure to take backup for my blogspot blog?
Thanks for the post. I have already learned the hard way that a blog backup is a must as I lost my entire blog after a malware and security breach on a shared hosting account. I lost months of work.
Very informative and a must read thanks
Backing up your website is one of the most important things that you can do. I personally use VaultPress, which is from Automattic, the creators of WordPress. Not only is the backup process completely automated, but if you need to rollback you can do so easily as well.
I have also checked Vaultpress before going for Backupbuddy, it also looks a promising tool. Only drawback was monthly pricing, where backupbuddy is a one time cost and does all the work.
Hi Sanjeev,
thanks for sharing your knowledge.
There are a lot of free plugins, like WordPress Database Backup, that backup the WordPress database.
But tools like Backupbuddy are really a must to have a complete backup of your site.
Of course it is not free, but it is worth definitely…
Loosing all your work of years of blogging has no price !
Hi Erik, I agree there are some free backup tools are available but I didn’t find anything which is end to end solution and does not requires any manual work.
I agree loosing your years of work has no price, so its better to spend some on saving that…
Backup is important part of any blog or website to keep data safe. Blog backup with BackupBuddy is really good because this website provides effective service about backup and restore process. I have already started to backup of my website with BackupBuddy. Thanks for your idea about Blog Backup.
Ya, I also love this tool and a must for my list of plugins. I do not want to loose all my hard work because of some small issues.
Hello Sanjeev, You really have a great blog. Keep it up. Thanks for sharing this article, as it is most important to take backup of your site. Recently, same incident had happen with one of our company blogs. Because of a small mistake, I forgot to apply some security measure to one wordpress blog and due to which I found the SQL injection issue and that blog was “Reported Attack Page!” by search engines. I tried to remove the SQL injection but was unable to solve it. It resulted in deletion of my whole data. You have done a great job by releasing this post. However, I would like to suggest you to release an article about “SQL Injection Vulnerabilities and How to Avoid it”. It will help beginners to avoid such mistakes and prevent their blogs from SQL Injection Vulnerabilities.
Thanks Mac for an idea about the post, I will defiantly check it. Backupbuddy is a great help in SQL injection cases also, as it restores the DB and file structure to the old state. We can just delete the tables and do an restore from the backup to remove SQL injection.
I use wordpress and a wp plugin called wp-db-backup… and I manually copy the entire file structure to my local HDD using FileZilla with SFTP. But I’m tired of rebuilding the contents of widgets… I’m looking for something that will backup my dB and get the contents of those widgets so I’ll look into backup buddy… Cheers –
Hi Mal, I agree that we can take blog backup manually but I always find that slowly we start missing the schedules and when required we might not have a current backup. Also as you mentioned restore process is a pain, Backupbuddy will restore in the same state as it took the backup, including widgets, themes and plugins. It even restores the settings for the plugin also..
Hey Sanjeev
Getting backup is such a easy job on a single click with that plugin for WordPress but in my case it’s like a hard enough to do and for restoring it’s hard enough for me.Take 1-1.5 hour effort for whole process.
Hi Rizwan, It depends on the amount of data you are trying to backup and the tables. but you can split it into file and database backup to make it work faster..
backup is very important it’s must.
Yes, Its a must have for any blog. nobody wants to loose their hard work and when that happens, it’s a way to go…
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