How to back up a WordPress website?
With the growth of your WordPress website, an increasing number of data and information gets accumulated and stored on your server. In the back end, the database also keeps on growing with new posts, web pages and visitor comments.
It does not matter how reliable the WordPress hosting company is, it is your responsibility to take steps on your part to safeguard your data. It is a crucial aspect as a webmaster to keep your data of WordPress database and other files backed up which can help you restore them if at all there is a disaster strike.
Though a few WordPress plugins can help you take a full backup of your website, it is equally simple to take a manual backup to help avoid the chance of a plugin malfunction.
Step 1: Taking a Back Up of Files
To take a manual backup of your WordPress files, an FTP client is required. You must establish a connection with the host’s FTP server, then search for the WordPress installation directory. If the WordPress installation has been done by you, this should be an easy task, else you’ll need to find the file. You should find a folder named “WordPress”.
You must download the complete directory to your local machine.
Step 2: Taking Back-up of the WordPress Database
As a default feature with your web hosting account, you have access to manage your database via. phpMyAdmin. Unless you use some other DB administration tool. In that case, the procedures might slightly differ, but there wouldn’t be any difference in its functionality.
You now, need to access the phpMyAdmin and look for your WP database. Once you’ve managed to locate it, look for the Export tab, and hit it for exporting the database.
On clicking the Export option, you should see the below screen. In the left column, there is a list of all the tables present in your WP database. Choose SQL as the format for exporting and tick the option Save as file. Click Go, this would export the database. This will download the file that would consist of all the SQL statements necessary for recreating the database. By default, the file name would be the same as that of your database example: databasename.sql
Step 3: Restore Your WordPress Website
Restoring your WordPress website is simple. You are only required to upload your WordPress directory onto the server and restore your database from the databasename.sql backup file that you downloaded in Step 2.
It is highly recommended to use a secure FTP client for restoring the WordPress files onto the server. You must use the same location as it was when you downloaded it.
A new database needs to be created before restoring all the data. You can proceed with it by going to phpMyAdmin. You can contact our support department for assistance doing that.
Once done, you need to click the Import link.
You would then be prompted to select your database file i.e. databasename.sql
Once you click GO, the database will be restored.
Note: You can even back up your site using an automated WordPress plugin: WP-DB-Backup Plugin. For that, you are first required to install it in your WP and activate it as well.
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