How to Backup Your Website
Unfortunately most website owners don't really understand the Importance of backing up their website until they need it, when usually it is too late. Don't get caught out !
Although most hosting providers are reliable, and do backups themselves, it is really not sufficient to rely solely on your host.
Firstly the backups that the host does are for the host, and may or may not be as frequent as you would like. They are also sever backups, which means they are meant for recovering from a sever failure and not from data loss on a particular site.
These backups do contain your site data but if your provider needs to recover your data due to a error on your part they may charge, and they may not be able to recover the latest data as this will depend on when it was changed and the frequency of the backup.
By conducting your own site backups you have complete control over your own data, and aren't reliant on the host provider.
What to Backup
If you have static files (.html files) that you created using a web editor like DreamWeaver then you already have a backup on your own PC as when you create the and edit the files it is done locally and then you transfer them to the host.
If your site uses a database ( sites created in WordPress, Joomla etc ) then you will need to not only backup the static php files that make up WordPress, but also the database that contains the actual content.
The easiest way to backup the WordPress database is using a plugin the one I use is here-http://ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup/. I recommend you configure it to do periodic backups and have them emailed to you.
Although the WordPress control files, themes and Plugins are available to download you should also backup them up as it can save you a lot of time and searching if you need to get them again and upload them. This you can do manually by using the ftp client to transfer them to your client machine.
Backup Tools
There is commercial backup software available that will automate the process and it is especially useful if you have more than one site/ and or do frequent changes. Sitevault offer a free trial, it can backup files and MYSQL databases.
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