Is it important to back up your websites? You bet.
Is the plugin BackupBuddy a good solid, reliable way to back up your blog? Yes it is.
Should you be interested in having a backup system for your blog?
You’d be surprised at how many WordPress sites are hacked in a day.
You’d also be surprised at how many people accidentally delete the contents of their blog, especially when changing themes or working with the structure of their blog. This is what we call ‘user error’.
Then there are accidents with servers.
Of course, these things always happen to other people. Not to you. Not to me.
Mike doesn’t care, but I always like to know if there is a personal story behind something and if the company has any vested interest in their product beside income. There is quite a story behind why iThemes created their BackupBuddy plugin.
Here’s Their Story
It started way back in 2009, when the iThemes’ server crashed. Just like the rest of us, they never thought it could it happen to them. They ended up spending hours “fueled by coffee and tacos” trying to rebuild everything from scratch – a 48 hour job.
Two months later, a user error brought down their site and they had to rebuild once again. They say it took over 100 hours to fix it this time.
And that as they say, was that. The developers began work on a backup system, and BackupBuddy was born. It was made available to the public in 2010, version 2.0 hit the market in 2011, and the version we have installed as I write this in 2012 is 3.0.43. This is one product that is constantly updated.
Here’s Our Story
We have our own story of losing websites. A few years ago we had our sites on a hosting company that was exceptionally accommodating to all of our needs and right on top of any questions and problems we needed solved. We didn’t realize that it was a one man operation. One man who, apparently had a complicated system of servers and didn’t keep adequate records for someone else to step in and take over.
Then he died unexpectedly.
Oh, Oh.
Our sites, everyone’s sites disappeared overnight. Eventually, we and others recovered some, all, bits and pieces, or none of our websites.
Two lessons learned.
- First, check and double check that your hosting company is reliable and a larger company than one person. We use BlueHost now.
- Second is backup, backup, backup.
That is why I searched for a product that would offer simple and safe blog back-up.
BackupBuddy 101
There are a lot of backup systems, so what’s so special about BackupBuddy? We actually have five good reasons for choosing this plugin as our backup plan.
1. If you somehow lose all the contents of your blog, this plugin could really pull through for you. It can back up all the contents of our WordPress site. Everything. That includes widgets, themes, plugins, files and important data by keeping the root folders secure.
2. If our website somehow disappears from the face of the online world, we just have to hit the restore function and we get everything back in no time.
3. You can use BackupBuddy when moving your WordPress blog to new domain, or if you’re migrating a site from your computer to an online domain.
4. You can schedule for your site to be backed up automatically, on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule and have the files sent to sites like Dropbox, Rackspace Cloud, Amazon S3, or other locations of your choice.
5. And last, but certainly not least, because this backup system is a plugin, updates appear automatically on your WordPress dashboard, so you can be sure always to have the latest upgrade working on your backup.
6. Okay, so here’s a bonus number. It also has a malware scan by Sucuri that gives you a report on any suspect activity that can affect your website. That’s double peace of mind to my way of thinking.
I could give you a detailed list of all of the great features, how it works, and how to get it set up, but iThemes has a great 49 page eBook called Getting Started with BackupBuddy that is free for you to download. You can find it at this eBook link.
Not Free But Worth the Price
Now, this kind of software and peace of mind does not come free.
There are four pricing options for one year licenses. It might look a bit pricey for a yearly renewal.
I can say, “Think of the cost in time and money of developing your website” and mean it from personal experience.
Been there. Done that. Lost it.
Think of the value of always having a backup and of maintaining continuity of your sites, then the cost of the license is really pretty inexpensive. For us it’s worth every penny.
Decide how many licenses you need and then go get yourself some peace of mind. After you’ve completed your purchase, downloaded BackupBuddy and uploaded it to your WordPress Dashboard, you’ll need to put in the license code to make sure you get the automatic updates. Then you can get your plugin set up to backup your website and you are good to go.
BackupBuddy is developed by iThemes, one of the best in the business of WordPress themes, plugins, and trainings. Your purchase is secure and so is your website.
Am I urging you to get a backup system for your website and this one in particular? Sure I am. Our goal here is to show you how to create and optimize your website. Protecting what you create is part of what you need to know.
We consider BackupBuddy as an integral part of our online routine. Consider making this great iThemes plugin a part of your website security routine, too.
About Beth Kelley