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4 reasons why you need to backup your website now!

4 reasons why you need to backup your website now!

Backing up your website regularly is like having an insurance policy for your site. You might never have to use your backups. However if anything were to happen to your website, you will be glad that you had backups.

In this article we will look at the 4 key reasons why you need to backup your website on a regular basis. Some you might know, some might be a surprise, so read on!

1. Impact to your customers and users

When you do not have a backup of your website, your website might experience downtime

The impact of having your website unavailable to your customers and users has to be the most important reason why you should back up your website regularly. For a moment, think of the impact to your customers, users and your business. Think of the potential loss of sales, enquires and bookings. What about your reputation too?

Your customers rely on your website to find out about your products and services, it’s a no-brainier that you need your website to be available 24/7.

If you run an internet business then backing up your website is imperative, it’s not even a choice, it’s just something you need to!

2. Your website gets hacked or is infected by malware and/or viruses

If your website is hacked, you can restore your back upsEveryday more and more websites are getting hacked or they are being infected with malware and viruses. This issue especially affects WordPress websites. Every time there is a patch to the WordPress platform, hackers update their bots/software to exploit the vulnerabilities which have just got fixed on previous versions.

Hackers then use bots to look for WordPress websites which are running the old version of WordPress (not patched) and try to hack and/or infect them with malware and viruses.

In cases of hacking, having an off site backup of your website is critical! Sometimes the only way to get your website backup and running is to restore it from a backup. If you do not have a backup, you might have to redesign your website from scratch!

3. Upgrades to the operating system and/or website platform e.g. WordPress

Backups are important when you upgrade your system or WordPressWhen I talk of system upgrades, I am talking about both the operating system your website server runs on e.g Windows or Linux and also platform upgrades for example to  WordPress. 

From time to time your server software, WordPress platform and any other platform for that matter will need to do a system upgrade for a number of reasons. For example; to improve performance, block vulnerabilities, add more features and increase the robustness of the system .

System upgrades are a good thing! They are usually tested thoroughly so that there is no impact to websites which are running on top of them. In most cases, system upgrades will go smoothly, you won’t even know that your system has been upgraded.

However they will be times when a system upgrade will cause your website to drop off or impact the performance. In such cases having a website backup can come to your rescue. It means you can quickly restore the backup and get your website up and running again.

4. Server downtime or crashes

With website backups you can deal with any server downtime

I know what you are thinking, my hosting company says my server has an uptime of 99.99%! That’s great, that means your website will be available almost every time. But that does not mean it will be available all the time. And that is the point, you need to backup your website for that 00.01% chance when your website might be down. Servers and website software is not bug free and it will crash now and again. Trust me it’s a fact of software life, that is why hosting companies do not ever guarantee 100% uptime. If your hosting company guarantee’s you an uptime of 100%, then I would be worried if I were you.

Another reason why you need to backup your website is, some hosting companies out there do not take regular backups of your website. If you are concerned about the backup policies for your hosting company, why not fire an email or raise a support ticket. These are the questions you need to ask them:

  • Do you take regular backups of my website under my hosting plan? (Some may not do unless you pay extra)

  • How regularly do you take backups?

  • Where do store your backups?

  • How long will it take you to restore my website from backups if the server crashes?

  • Can I get access to my website backup? (If you can, then it will be worth copying it to your laptop and/or cloud storage e.g. Google Drive)

That’s it! 4 very important reasons why you need to back up your website right now. Please take the time to check your website backup policy as soon as you can and make sure you are taking backups.

Too busy to take backups of your website?

Excel Web Support is here to help! Under our WordPress Support Plans we take regular backups of your website, and store them off-site. So that if anything should happen to your website or server we can quickly restore your website. We also look after all aspects of your WordPress website including; hosting, backups, WordPress updates, security, content management, bug fixes and just about anything to do with with your website so that you can do what you do best!

About the Author
ExcelWeb Support
I am a WordPress support specialist. I manage, support and maintain WordPress websites for small businesses. If you need any help on your website, please get in touch.