Why every website needs a backup

Anyone operating a web presence on the internet should consider website backups. Creating your own website typically requires a significant amount of time and usually involves a considerable financial investment. Only with an up-to-date backup can you reliably restore data in case of loss or compromise. Find out everything you need to know on the topic in the following article.

Why are backups of your own website so important?

If your own website is publicly accessible on the internet, it is exposed to various dangers. The biggest threat is hacker attacks. Unauthorized individuals attempt to gain access to your website and alter its contents. Subsequently, the owner is often blackmailed or the website is misused for personal gain without the operator's knowledge. This can also involve illegal actions for which the website operator may be held accountable.

However, not only deliberate hacker attacks pose a threat. An unforeseen technical error can also become a danger to your website. This could be hardware failures or general issues with the server or the infrastructure of the web hosting provider.

All these threatening circumstances can lead to the loss of data on your website and render the website inoperable. Particularly for commercial offerings on the internet such as online shops or web services, this can have serious financial consequences for a company. However, even for private users, data loss is an easily avoidable inconvenience.

Also, explore Cloud Servers with Backup Storage as an alternative or check out the offers for VPS hosting with Backup Storage and Dedicated Servers with Backup Storage.

When should backups of your own website be created?

Now that it is clear how important backups of your own website are, the question arises of when to create them. In general, it is recommended to create an initial full backup immediately once your website is finished and available on the internet for the first time. This way, an optimal starting position can be established, and if anything happens to the website in the future, it can always be restored to its original state using this backup.

Additional backups become necessary when the content of your website is continuously expanding or when a Content Management System like WordPress or Joomla is used, which receives updates and upgrades over time. So, if the data on your website changes continuously, new backups must also be created regularly to always be up to date in case of emergencies.

How are backups created?

Backups can be created automatically or manually. Depending on the web hosting package and provider, the web host takes care of data backup accordingly. While backups are usually created in budget-friendly shared web hosting packages, there is no guarantee that they will be available to the customer in case of emergencies. Only in higher-tier plans, which also incur higher monthly costs, are customers contractually assured of having up-to-date data backups available.

Although the host takes care of creating backups, every website owner should additionally secure themselves with manually created backups. These can be created manually by downloading all the data of the website or, depending on the Content Management System used, organized using plugins. For the popular CMS WordPress, for example, there is a wide range of different options, which we extensively introduce to you in the article Data Backup of a WordPress Web Hosting. When creating backups, it is essential to ensure the completeness of the data. In addition to the files directly in the HTML directory, database entries, for example, are also included. Only when all data is properly backed up is a later restoration possible.

Types of Backups

When creating backups, there are basically three different ways in which they are technically created. Depending on the chosen method, a corresponding high data transfer is required and a corresponding amount of storage space is needed. Especially for large and extensive web projects, the choice of backup type strongly affects effort and costs.
 

• Full Backup: Here, all data of the web presence is completely backed up.
• Differential Backup: Here, all files that have changed or been added since the last full backup are backed up.
• Incremental Backup: Here, only the files that have been added or changed since the last incremental backup are backed up.

The Suitable Medium for Data Backup

Lastly, it is important to determine which medium is suitable for data backup. To prevent potential data loss, it is best to rely on different media. Keeping the data backup on the same server as the website is convenient on one hand, but can become a problem in case of hardware damage. It is better to store the data on another server. Cloud storage is also popular, as it is usually additionally protected against data loss by the operator. Local data backup to an external hard drive, a USB drive, or a dedicated NAS system can also prove useful in case of emergency.

Conclusion

Backups are very important for website owners and should not be neglected. Especially for entrepreneurs running a commercial website, it is crucial to plan a comprehensive backup strategy from the beginning. Additionally, the created backups should be tested to ensure they can be used for a functional restoration in case of emergency.