Backing up your website today is quick, easy and inexpensive. In fact, you can even automate the process so it happens without you having to do anything. Even better, if you’re a Webhosting UK customer, many of our hosting plans come with free daily backups included and we take care of the whole process for you. However, if you don’t have a backup solution in place, your website and potentially your business are at serious risk. Here are the reasons you should back up your website.
- Everyone makes mistakes
Human error can result in website loss in many ways, for example, we can accidentally delete files and data or mistakenly install a new theme when we only want to preview it. When such errors occur, fixing them can take a very long time and your website could be offline until the problem is resolved.If you have a backup, you can simply restore the website as it was before the mistake was made and do so in a very short space of time. As a result, downtime is significantly shortened and the impact on your business is reduced.
- Updates and installs don’t always go to plan
From a security perspective, it is important to have automatic updates in place to ensure that any vulnerabilities with your website are removed as soon as possible. However, updates usually require some change to the software’s coding and these changes might cause conflicts with your core software, theme or other plugins. If a conflict does occur, your website might not work as it should or even go offline. In some circumstances, this might prevent you from accessing your admin page to deactivate the offending plugin. Having a backup ensures that you can resolve this quickly and painlessly.You should also have caution when installing new software, for example, a new theme or plugin that you have not used before, as these too can cause conflicts. If possible, always choose one that has been tested to work with your core software. If you use WordPress, for example, it is always safer to use plugins and themes from the WordPress Repository.
- Restores lost data
Imagine how long it would take to manually replace every bit of content on your website or what you would do if all your customer information, including sales data, suddenly disappeared. It could take years to rewrite a blog or input thousands of product pages, and getting back customer information might be impossible. Events like this can cause immeasurable damage to your business.The value of a backup is that a recent copy of all your content and data is safely stored elsewhere in the cloud and can be accessed immediately to restore your site.
- Removes malware
There are numerous reasons a cybercriminal would want to infect your website and many ways that they can go about it. Even if your web host uses the latest firewalls to defend your server and you have strong security yourself, it is no guarantee that you won’t become a victim.If the worst happens, you could be ransomed to get control of your website back or find that the malware is carrying out activities that harm your customers. Fixing the issue can involve not just finding and removing the malware, which can be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but mending any damage as well.
Instead of spending weeks trying to manually fix the issue, the easiest solution is to use a backup that was made before your website became infected. This way, you can have a malware-free website again in next to no time.
Concerned about security? Check out our guide: 6 Clues Your Website’s Been Silently Hacked. - Quickly fixes hacker damage
Your website is just as much at risk of hacking as it is of being infected. Hackers, however, will have access to the backend of your website, enabling them to take control of it. They can delete your admin account and replace it with their own, delete or vandalise the site, steal or change data and install malware.You can restore your site easily with a backup, and as this is done through your control panel, not your site’s admin page, this can happen even if your admin account has been deleted. Once restored, any damage done will have disappeared. Of course, you will need to take measures to ensure you don’t get hacked again.
- Makes migration easier
If you have found a new web host, you will need to migrate your website from your old hosting account to your new one. This will mean moving all your website files and data. The easiest way to make sure this goes smoothly is to use the latest backup. If migration sounds a bit complicated, don’t worry – if you move your hosting to Webhosting UK, we’ll take care of the migration for you. - Creates a testing site
Website platforms, like WordPress, Joomla, Magento and Drupal, make it easier than ever to build professional websites without having to pay for a developer. Some website owners, however, like to experiment with the coding when making improvements and will make changes to CSS, HTML and PHP. While there is a multitude of online guidance to help, things don’t always go smoothly. One bit of miswritten code and the website can be thrown into disarray or crash.The value of a backup here is not just that it enables you to restore things quickly if you make a coding error. Even better, you can use a backup to create a clone of your site and then play around with it at your heart’s content, knowing that if you make a mistake, it won’t affect the live site. Once you are happy with any changes you can then use a copy of the test site to update your actual site.
Modern backup solutions
While you can get free, daily cloud-based backups as part of some Webhosting UK plans, for hosting without free backups and for those businesses that need to back up more frequently, there is an ideal solution. Webhosting UK’s R1 Soft Backup Solution enables you to schedule automatic backups at the frequency your business needs. These backups are then stored remotely in the cloud, encrypted for security and checked for integrity to ensure they will work if you need them. You can back up everything from a website to an entire server and, being in the cloud, can have as much storage as you need to keep multiple backups. For assurance, the service also comes with 24/7 technical support.
Conclusion
Issues such as hacking, malware, human error, hardware failure and software corruption can cause websites to fail. The easiest way to recover from such disasters is to have a backup solution that is automated, secure and which ensures backups are fit for purpose. For more information, visit our Backup Solutions page.
