When Kimberly Castleberry created a wonderful tutorial movie and suggested I use it to back up my blog I reluctantly took her advice and did it.
I’m so glad I did! I’m sure you know someone who lost everything when there was no back-up! When I made a mistake and lost mine yesterday, I was saved by having a back up!
Before you do anything! You should always have your backups!
Kimberly gave me permission to use her tutorial. When you follow her instructions, you’ll program your plugin to back up your blog daily! When you install, activate and program your plugin once and you’ll have regular back ups. Quick and easy!
Kimberly will walk you through the instillation of the 2 plugins needed
WP-DB Backup
WordPress Backup
Because I did just as Kimberly suggested, I have the daily “backups” in a gmail backup account so it was easy to retrieve.
With these two plugins, the critical parts of my blog were saved!
If you enjoyed this training, this is one of many wordpress, social media and marketing/branding gems available to students of Jodie Thompson and Kimberly Castleberry in Profit Being You (PBY) Word Press & Social Media classes.
Have you already backed up your blog? Have you ever needed your back up?
I speak from personal experience, just do it! Back up your WordPress blog!!
July 7th, 2010 at 1:41 am
Hi Linda
This is a very valuable post, and one that everyone should read at some point.
Thank goodness for plugins and programs that make backing up files much easier!
In addition to the points you’ve raised, I suggest checking your email regularly to ensure you ARE receiving the daily backup files! (I think Kimberly says that in the video, but it’s worth mentioning again here). Occasionally plugins have hiccups, and it’s not much consolation to find that what you assumed was working, wasn’t! (I’m speaking from experience here!).
Also – speaking from experience again! – I suggest keeping a copies of each of the backup files for the previous week at any given time, on your computer hard drive and a memory stick or other external hard drive. Don’t simply rely on keeping them with your emails, although if you’re using Gmail then that should be fine because it’s kept on an external server, not on your computer.
As you know, I lost everything on my site some time ago, and I was kicking myself that I didn’t have a backup copy of everything.
I had the majority of my work backed up on an external hard drive – that has malfunctioned! – but thankfully, I’ve got the rough notes for most of the posts that I’d done. It’s a long process rewriting them all, but eventually I’ll have them all back on my blog – and then some!
I recently upgraded my WordPress blog to version 3.0, however, I kept putting it off because, yet again, one of the backup plugins that I was using had a hiccup, and I wasn’t game to do anything until it was all working properly again.
I’m pleased to say that as soon as I found that particular plugin to be working again, I did another backup of all files, plus the other associated steps involved, then upgraded to WordPress 3.0 – without any hitches … phew!
As with any mistake/error, we learn what NOT to do, and I’ll never make the mistake of not having a backup of everything at any given moment!
~ Kylie ~
Kylie Doak@MarketingSolutions recently posted..A Blast From The Past
July 7th, 2010 at 9:08 am
Thank you for sharing Kylie~
It’s unfortunate that you’re a good example of a bad example! You know I love you Kylie?! It’s because of your experience that I took Kimberly’s advice when I did and made the back up! I don’t know that I would have had your good attitude if I lost everything like you did!!
~Linda
July 7th, 2010 at 7:11 am
Thanks Linda, I now backup every day
Peter Fuller MBA recently posted..Brand yourself online with your own “Nerve” Center
July 7th, 2010 at 9:00 am
So you’ve learned without it having to be ‘the hard way’! That’s the way to do it!!
July 7th, 2010 at 11:47 am
Hi Linda,
Thanks for sharing these instructions, much appreciated. I now make a point of backing up all the important files on my PC at least once per week!
Regards,
Andrew
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July 7th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
We’ve had great teachers, right? It is always better to be safe than sorry. I also like Kylie’s idea of backing it up on a thumb drive, so there are multiple copies. Thanks for the reminder, Linda.
Darlene Davis recently posted..Shall We Dance
July 7th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
I couldn’t agree more! Great minds think alike!
July 8th, 2010 at 9:05 am
Linda,
Kimberly has saved more than one person from disasters with her expertise. Backing up your blog is essential! Thanks for sharing this with others who may not know this,
Val
Val Wilcox recently posted..Renew Your Mindset With Faith
July 8th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Isn’t Kimberly wonderful? I’m grateful for her everyday!!
July 8th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Hi Linda,
Great information and very timely too as so many people lately have had their blog hacked into. It would be devastating not to have a backup. Thanks for sharing this great information.
Debbie Stevens recently posted..Courage and Confidence The Rest of the Story
July 8th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Thanks Debbie~
Isn’t it amazing, as the world gets better the bad get’s worse! It would be so much easier if there wasn’t any oposition to contend with – but I know, that’s what life is made of! I look forward to reading your most recent post! Courage and confidence~ sounds right up my alley!
July 8th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Linda, Great post! Lots of value here! Very useful blogpost! Thanks for sharing this information. I followed along with Kimberly’s tutorial and backed up my blog. Joseph McDevitt
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July 19th, 2011 at 11:33 am
Hi Linda,
A great video that demystifies what can be a scary process to a lot of people. I remember setting up a WordPress site for the first time and backups were the last thing on my mind!
Having your backups emailed to you is really the best way to have things setup. Nothing to remember to do every week. I’ll probably change to these plugins soon to make my backups automated too.
Steve Allenby recently posted..Hair Treatment for Female Pattern Baldness
July 29th, 2011 at 6:05 pm
I wish I’d backed up when I first started out, but back then I had no idea about plugins and such. I did lose an entire site when I tried to do some fancy stuff with a WP blog once. It’s npt a nice thing to have happen to you!
July 30th, 2011 at 10:40 am
Sue~
I totally understand, it’s live and learn!
Linda
August 24th, 2011 at 11:03 am
Hi Linda, the trick with backing up a wordpress site is to also back up the database file, and this isn’t always so straightfoward, right?
August 25th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
Michael,
I am so computer illiterate! I try but I forget as soon as I do! I’m thankful for good mentors!
Linda
August 24th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
This is exactly what I have been looking for. I am in the habit of only backing up my sites once every couple of weeks. I am looking forward to putting it on autopilot. Thanks Linda.
August 25th, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Rob,
I owe this information to my mentor, Kimberly Castleberry!
Linda
September 1st, 2011 at 6:27 pm
thanks for sharing! I will back up my wordpress blogs from now on.
Samantha
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September 2nd, 2011 at 10:14 am
Samantha,
I mine has crashed and without a back up I would have died! (well maybe that’s too extreme)
Linda
September 6th, 2011 at 1:17 am
It’s is really recommended that you back up all your outputs, files, and documents. In my case, I was not able to back up my videos and blogs and I felt depression when all of those were deleted.
Melisa Peveto recently posted..Deciding to Buy Keratin Hair Treatment
September 6th, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Melisa~
What a bummer!!! It’s so interesting how we have such fun with all this new technology and we have a whole new set of problems and loss!
Linda
September 6th, 2011 at 10:51 am
I’ve never backed up my WordPress site but I had some trouble about a month and a half ago where when i went to my site it had all different content and it scared the living s–t out of me.Luckily my IP was able to help me out,now after reading this blog I’m going after those plugins.
Ted@seo big Island recently posted..Why use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to attract more Customers ?
September 6th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Ted,
I too thank my lucky stars for backups! My life’s work is online these days, it would be tragic to loose it all!
Linda
September 7th, 2011 at 9:12 am
Hi Lindagraceonline,
Interesting Thoughts, I have a business blog section on my website. It’s basically an area of the website I can regularly update so that the content on my website is fresh. This is supposed to be good for my website in terms of search engines crawlers (apparently they’ll return more often).
But would I benefit more if I also have a blog in a proper blogging environment such as Blogger, WordPress etc. with links to various related pages in my website. I guess the upside would be that I would have relevent inbound links but the downside would be that I wouldn’t have the blog on my own site which means no regularly updated content.
Unless I run the blogs simultaneaously, but would that be seen as some sort of Black Hat technique due to the content being duplicated on an external blog which is linking back?
HELP!
Thanks in advance.
BTW great blogpost
September 8th, 2011 at 7:17 am
Goodness Justin, you’re so far above me! These are questions I haven’t even thought of let alone answered! Why don’t you comeback and let me know the answer!
Linda
September 27th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
Thanks Linda for this post! I’m very lucky I come up on your blog. It’s good to know all those stuff about saving and making a back up for my WP blog. This is really helpful. Thanks a lot!
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September 30th, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Maddie,
It’s always comfortable having a back up just in case!
Linda
October 3rd, 2011 at 3:41 am
I agree. Every blogger should have back up. It’s safer that way. Thanks for the tips on how we could do it. Good Job!
October 10th, 2011 at 6:58 am
Marc,
Yes, I’m very grateful for a back up! I would have been LOST without it!
Linda
October 10th, 2011 at 9:08 am
Marc,
Yes! We take a chance of loosing it all!
Linda
November 4th, 2011 at 10:02 am
I backup regularly, but I use Dropbox with the WP Time Machine plugin. I use this approach because I believe that it’s a good idea to have a backup copy offsite, not just a local copy. I’m very happy with my setup, but after watching the video I’m considering using the method it explains instead. Thanks a lot for sharing.
December 7th, 2011 at 12:21 am
Hi Linda thanks for sharing tutorial. This will really help a lot you newbie bloggers out there who’s using WordPress. Cheer!!!
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December 7th, 2011 at 12:46 am
I’ve just come across another plugin for backing up called Backup Creator. I wanted to clone my site so I can use the same setup for future sites without having to change settings, install plugins etc. Backup Creator does this incredibly quickly and easily, and it’s good for normal backups as well.
December 7th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Mark,
Does Backup Creator cost? Where do we get it?
Linda
December 22nd, 2011 at 2:32 am
Many Thanks Linda for highlighting backups as a major task for every blogger out there.
I personally have recently moved to EZPZ Backup and have that automatically backup to Dropbox. Setup is very easy and I would happily recommend it.
Looking at your other reader’s comments it does seem that there a lot of options out there now, which was not the case going back a few years. There really is no excuse for losing your site anymore when it is as simple as installing a plugin.
Ben@Golf Practice Net recently posted..Golf Practice Net – Why you need one
January 15th, 2012 at 7:16 pm
You can never remind people to back up there blogs too much. Showing them helps greatly. I of course got lazy and didn’t Back Up one of mine and am not happy about it.
January 16th, 2012 at 4:50 am
I absolutely love your blog and find a lot of your post’s to be precisely what I’m looking for. Does one offer guest writers to write content for yourself? I wouldn’t mind writing a post or elaborating on a lot of the subjects you write in relation to here. Again, awesome web site!
January 16th, 2012 at 10:08 am
Chong,
I LOVE guest authors! You pick a subject that I have here on lindagraceonline (that you’d like to write more about), go up to the CONTACT button on the top, click there and send me a message. I’ll get right back to you! Thank you Chong!
Linda