Backup Your Blog(s)

If you are a WordPress blogger, then you must have a plan to back up your blog(s).

The backup should include the database and all of the WordPress folders and files.

The are many choices available to do this. Some are rather costly and others are free. Some work, some don’t. Some backup just certain things, but not everything.

The Duplicator plugin proved to be a lifesaver for me in April of 2014. I have been using it since April of 2014 and it is a First Class item to use with WordPress. And it is 100 % free, although they have a paid version also.

This is what happened to me in April of 2014.

I had 100 WordPress blogs spread over 2 domains (50 on each). Around April 25, 2014, both of my domains were hacked and everything got destroyed/deleted. This was from a very reputable hosting company.

When I realized something had happened, the hosting company was immediately called to find out what was going on.

They informed me that my domains had in fact been hacked. After a few hours had passed, they sent me an email stating that they had a backup and could restore them. Again, this was from a very reputable hosting company.

They sent me another email after the restore had been completed and everything seemed to be back up and functioning. All of my 100 blogs were back up and functioning again.

Then 2 days later, the same thing happened again. Every blog on each domain had been trashed again.

As soon as I realized there was another serious problem, I called the hosting company and told them what was going on.  Again, this was from a very reputable hosting company.

Somewhere between 2-3 hours later, since I had not received any type of communication from them, I called them to find out what is going on.

This time, they tell me they have NO backups to restore any of my 100 blogs.  Again, this was from a very reputable hosting company.

Well, needless to say, I was pissed, I was furious. As soon as I got off the phone with them, I tried to compose myself, and then I began looking for a new hosting company.

I made up a list of questions to ask and after calling several, I found one.

This new company is much more reasonable with what they charge and they do daily backups.

This is something that made me happy. So during each month, they have 30 backups they can use to restore your blog(s) if they are any problems.

They helped me set up a new account. In less than 1 hour the new site was usable.

While waiting for the site to be functional, I decided that instead of having 2 domains again, I decided to have 1 domain, with 1 blog, and have 100 categories.

Now I could use the backups created by the Duplicator plugin and start re-creating each blog.

This plugin was and is a tremendous help to me.

Duplicator is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to:

1. Backup the blog’s database

2. Backup the blog’s WordPress files and folders

3. Restore a damaged or corrupt blog
a.) Database
b.) WordPress files and folders

4. Clone an existing blog into a new blog and then modify the new blog as you want

After creating a new blog, it might take anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours to get everything set up the way you desire.

By cloning an existing blog into a new blog, it takes less than 10 minutes

The plugin can be downloaded by going to this link.

https://snapcreek.com

Tutorial Video for the Plugin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdP3quWLM0Q

Would I recommend this plugin to anyone who has a WordPress blog or blogs? That is a big YES!