A backup is a copy of your website that lets you restore an earlier state. Whether it helps in an emergency comes down to four questions.
A WordPress website consists of two parts. If one of them is missing, it cannot be restored.
The copy only becomes a backup once it meets four conditions:
How often a site can be backed up depends on how much work each backup puts on the server.
Copies the entire website on every run.
Complete once, then only what has changed.
unchanged, not copied again
Most hosts back up their servers. As the only backup, that is not enough: copy and original depend on the same provider.
Outage after a server migration. Restored from our own backup, because the host's backup was hit by the same process.
We’re here for you, personally.
Characters brokenEvery special character in every text broken. Eight hours of repair, only possible with the backup from before the move.
The backup was silently rejected. It only came to light because the update waited for its confirmation.
A backup only counts once it is confirmed and stored elsewhere.
Cases from our work, treated confidentially.
A restore overwrites the live website with an older state. The example: after a gallery plugin update, the images are missing.
The four questions from the top of this page, answered for our maintenance. The answers apply to every plan.