by David Robb, CTO/ Lead Web Developer
We recently acquired a new client who lost her entire site a few weeks ago because she didn’t have automated backups and her hosting company didn’t either. Well.. they DID… but they only went back 30 days… and those files were corrupted… etc.. Basically, her database was corrupt and unusable, and her hosting company couldn’t go back far enough to get a clean version. No one knows how her database was corrupted, but regular maintenance could have detected the problem early enough to keep her from having to completely rebuild her site.
Cloud-based backups are ideal, but anything’s better than nothing. If our client had had even 1 backup from before it got corrupted, it would’ve have saved her time and money. When we set up automated backups for our clients, I use amazon’s S3 cloud service because it’s the best value and 99.99999% reliable. I set up both daily and monthly backups, so it’s the least likely that you’ll lose much (if any) of your valuable info. It’s kind of like insurance: you might never have to use it, but if you do, you’ll be glad you’ve got it.If you’re not 100% sure your maintenance and backups are happening, let’s talk about it. We have a great automated backup system for WordPress sites that I maintain for our web clients every month. I check to make sure all the plug-ins and themes are up-to-date, and I fix any problems arising due to the update process. I also check to make sure that your backups are actually working as they should. If they’re not, I fix that too.
This package has a one-time set-up fee of $50, and is only $30/ month (billed quarterly). When you consider that the cost of lost revenue & client acquisitions from your site being down, plus the cost of re-building your site (including your team’s time in re-doing the basic stuff like data entry & graphics) easily runs into the $1000s (thousands of dollars!), this is an insurance policy you definitely want.
If your site goes down without backups, there’s a lot of stress, lost money, lost time, and a gigantic hassle. If it goes down with backups, your site could potentially be back up within hours.