Website Backups – An Essential Often Overlooked
by Sam Davis
Throughout my career as an employee for a small company, the importance of having a decent hosting platform is vital. The number of times we would have server outages or things go wrong – was infrequent – but at the same time when it did happen, it was horrendous. The amount of nights I would spend trying to put back sites that had “broken”, had gone down to server outages, or had been hacked are not ones I look back on fondly – but it taught me a vital lesson, which was NEVER to scrimp on hosting – because whilst some companies may offer it to you for next to nothing, it is often not what it is cracked up to be.
Yes – £3 a month might buy you unlimited bandwidth, disk space, installs etc – but often, you can find it is too good to be true. Nine times out of ten, you’ll find it will often be slow as it is a “shared server”, meaning that your site speed is affected by others on the same VPS. Similarly, since you’re on the same IP – your clean site can also get deemed as sending spam mail when in actual fact it is someone else on the same server that is causing the misdemeanours.
The ability to be able to restore a website in a heartbeat is crucial – which is why I offer it for free with any of my hosting packages
Having backups is also something which is seldom offered as part of a package, and is often included as a “bolt-on”. I genuinely don’t understand this, because the need to have regular on-site and off-site backups of your websites is a complete must. If you’re someone like me who hosts sites for others as well as myself, then the ability to be able to restore a website in a heartbeat is crucial – which is why I offer it for free with any of my hosting packages.
Websites may break or go down for one of umpteen reasons. Occasionally, it is out of your control, and it is a level above the server itself – perhaps being down to a power outage at a data-center or a hardware failure. However, in the majority or circumstances, any issues can often be isolated to your server or domain itself – by the way of a web developer making a code change which has killed a script, changing file or group permissions incorrectly, or even insecure websites getting hacked with malware and dodgy pieces of code. Either way, if any of these instances occur, it is vital that a backup is available for your website so a clean version can be installed.
The backups are split into database only, file only, or both – meaning you have total control in what is restored. Plus, if you want to, you can download the files that are stored in the backup – meaning that you can compare any code or database changes
All sites I host are backed up nightly for a 30 day window – this means you can restore your site from any single day over the past month. The backups are split into database only, file only, or both – meaning you have total control in what is restored. Plus, if you want to, you can download the files that are stored in the backup – meaning that you can compare any code or database changes, allowing you to get to the root of the problem.
Remember that if you have just made a cockup or deleted something that you shouldn’t have, your WordPress install (should you be using that platform) will have a revision history which will allow you to restore a previous version of the post or page that you are editing. However if you have permanently deleted a file, worry not – as backups are available, which will make sure that your previous work will never disappear and will always be captured every 24 hours – ensuring peace of mind and, more importantly, no sleepless nights!
LET A HOSTING EXPERT TAKE CARE OF YOUR WEBSITE
Sam Davis
I am fanatical about providing useful web experiences, via bespoke websites which engage, inform and entertain. I have been making websites since a young age, and am a keen supporter of AFC Bournemouth.
