Backing up your WordPress website is critical to ensuring its security, functionality, and long-term viability. Website crashes, hacking attempts, or even simple human errors can cause data loss that could severely impact your business. This is where offsite WordPress backups come in.
Offsite backups are copies of your website files and databases stored in a separate location from your main server. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the importance of offsite WordPress backups and how you can automate the process to ensure your site is always protected.
Why Offsite Backups Are Essential for WordPress
Offsite WordPress backups are a vital part of any disaster recovery plan. While it’s possible to create local backups stored on your hosting server, offsite backups provide an additional layer of security. By storing your data elsewhere, you minimize the risks associated with server crashes, cyberattacks, or natural disasters.
Protecting Your Data from Local Failures
If your backups are stored only on the same server that hosts your website, you’re exposing yourself to unnecessary risk. If that server experiences a hardware failure, all your website data—including backups—could be lost. Offsite WordPress backups protect your site by storing copies in a remote location, such as cloud storage or external servers. This ensures that even if your server goes down, you’ll have a complete, untouched backup available for restoration.
Guarding Against Cybersecurity Threats
Cybersecurity threats like hacking, malware, and ransomware are common issues for WordPress websites. In the event that an attack compromises your site and the data stored on your hosting server, having offsite WordPress backups means your backup data is safe. With offsite storage, you can restore your website without worrying about backups being infected or corrupted by malicious software.
How to Create Offsite WordPress Backups
There are several methods for creating offsite backups for your WordPress site. These methods range from manual backups to automated plugins, each offering varying levels of control and convenience.
Manual Backup Process
The manual process for creating offsite WordPress backups involves downloading your website files and database to your local system and then transferring them to an external location such as cloud storage or an external hard drive. You can use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to manually copy your files from your hosting server. Similarly, you can export your WordPress database using a tool like phpMyAdmin.
However, manual backups can be time-consuming and error-prone. You must regularly download and store backups, which can be easy to forget. If you’re not careful, you might skip important files or databases, rendering the backup incomplete. Therefore, while manual backups give you control, they are often impractical for ongoing backup needs.
Using Backup Plugins
Most WordPress users prefer to use backup plugins to streamline the process. These plugins automate the creation of offsite WordPress backups, ensuring you don’t have to manually intervene every time you need to back up your site. Plugins like UpdraftPlus, BackupBuddy, and Jetpack offer automated features where you can set a schedule for regular backups and choose where to store them (cloud storage, FTP, etc.).
Backup plugins typically back up both your website files and your database, offering a comprehensive solution. In addition, they often include a one-click restore feature, allowing you to quickly recover your website from a backup if something goes wrong.
Automating Offsite WordPress Backups
Manually backing up your website can become tedious, and missing just one backup could be disastrous. Automating the process ensures that you always have a recent backup of your website without needing to remember to do it manually.
Choosing the Right Backup Plugin
Selecting the best plugin for your offsite WordPress backups depends on your specific needs. UpdraftPlus is a popular choice because it integrates easily with various offsite storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Amazon S3. BackupBuddy and BlogVault are also powerful options, offering features like automatic scheduling, encrypted storage, and incremental backups to save space.
These plugins not only allow you to back up your site files and database automatically but also simplify the process of restoring your site if needed. Some premium plugins provide additional features like real-time backups, which are useful for websites that change frequently, such as ecommerce sites.
Configuring Automatic Backup Schedules
After choosing a backup plugin, configuring automatic backup schedules is essential to ensure offsite WordPress backups occur regularly. Many plugins allow you to schedule backups daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on how often your site is updated. If you run an ecommerce site or a blog that’s updated frequently, daily backups are recommended to capture all changes. For less active websites, a weekly schedule may be sufficient.
Be sure to configure your plugin to store these backups in an offsite location. Most plugins support direct integrations with cloud storage services or FTP servers, where you can safely store your data offsite.
Best Offsite Storage Options for WordPress Backups
Choosing the right storage location for your offsite WordPress backups is as important as the backup process itself. You’ll need a reliable and secure storage solution that fits your budget and offers easy access when needed.
Cloud Storage Solutions (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.)
Cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Amazon S3 are among the most popular choices for offsite WordPress backups. These services offer scalable storage, easy access, and strong security measures. Many WordPress backup plugins seamlessly integrate with these cloud providers, allowing you to automatically transfer your backups as they are created.
Google Drive and Dropbox are especially convenient for smaller websites due to their free storage tiers. Amazon S3, on the other hand, is ideal for larger sites with heavier storage needs, as it offers affordable and scalable solutions.
Secure FTP Servers
For those who prefer more control over their backup storage, using a Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) server is another option. With an SFTP server, you can store your backups on a remote server that you manage. This option is particularly useful for businesses with strict privacy or security requirements, as it offers more control over how and where backups are stored.
Though FTP storage requires more technical knowledge to set up, it provides a highly secure and private solution for offsite backups.
Final Tips for Ensuring Reliable WordPress Backups
Having a solid offsite WordPress backup strategy is crucial, but there are a few final considerations to ensure your backups are effective and reliable.
First, always verify your backups regularly. Test your backups by restoring them in a local environment or staging site to make sure everything functions properly. You don’t want to wait until an emergency to find out that your backups are corrupted or incomplete.
Second, keep multiple backup copies in different locations. For example, you could store one backup in a cloud service like Google Drive and another on an SFTP server. This redundancy ensures that even if one backup fails, you have another available.
Lastly, ensure that both your backup plugin and storage solutions are updated regularly. Plugin updates can bring crucial security improvements and bug fixes, so staying up to date will keep your backup process running smoothly.
Conclusion
Setting up offsite WordPress backups is an essential part of securing your website against potential data loss, crashes, and cyberattacks. By using backup plugins, automating the backup process, and choosing reliable offsite storage, you can ensure that your site is protected at all times. Offsite WordPress backups provide peace of mind, allowing you to focus on growing your website while knowing that your data is always safe and recoverable.
