WordPress site is the place where all your WordPress core installation files, plugins, themes, images, files, PHP scripts, code files whereas the WordPress database is the place where all your posts, users, comments, templates, menus, and other taxonomies.
In the case of malicious hack or with an improper plugin function, all those data might get lost. Even though you cannot be responsible for the loss, you can handle it wisely by storing a backup of all the data input such that you never miss out anything.
Corrupted Site? Here Is The List Of The Failsafe Ways To Backup Your Site;
1. Backup With cPanel
This is one of the common and easiest methods of backup. In this method, you can opt to back up your site’s home directory alone or the entire database.
Also, you have the convenience of transferring the files to same or different servers. You can do this by navigating to the file manager in the cPanel of your site.
Find the option called backup and select it. You will have to choose between downloading a home directory backup or MySQL database backup. Also, you can set the place where you wish to restore the copy of the downloaded files for future use.
2. With Wp Export
It is an inbuilt tool that is used to only export files of your site. You can reach the tool by navigating to the tools menu in the dashboard and choosing the option export and then choosing the options which you wish to export. It will get downloaded automatically and stored for future use.
However, the tool does not help in, complete backup of the site or database. It only saves a copy of the contents other than the theme, plugins, SEO, images, etc.
3. With PhpMyAdmin
PhpMy admin is the script with which the entire WordPress is built on and it helps in providing information to the database when searched for the content of the site. To login to the software, you will require the username and password provided to you at the time of registration.
Once you find out the PHPMyAdmin panel, choose the databases option, which was installed with WordPress download. Now, move to the structure tab and you can see a table with a list of options that can be copied.
Select quick or the custom option of export and your data will be saved as a zip file, for future use. However, this option is not recommended for large database backups.
4. With Plugin
This is one of the simplest methods of backup as it is done with the help of an installed plugin. For those who wish to have a regular backup of their site or database can make use of the plugin option of back up.
With this, you can back up the entire site or the database alone and restore it in the same or different server. One of the popular plugins for backup is the BackupBuddy plugin. The plugins help in backup of the database in a single click.
5. With FTP
This is also a simple method to backup your data and it requires an FTP client for performing the function. This comes handy if you have to download a large database as a backup.
One of the common FTP clients is the Filezilla. Once you download and install your FTP client, login to it and navigate to the HTML directory of the FTP control panel. You can find the list of files that can be downloaded in the public-html folder; click and drag the entire files or a single file to the local files to initiate a download.
Irrespective of the method you choose to backup, restoring involves the same procedure starting with cleaning the files, installing a new copy of WordPress, and uploading all the contents back to the site.