Backing up your site - VERY IMPORTANT

Unless your web host is 100% reliable which lets be honest is very unlikely then you need to keep regular backups of your site.

Even if your host is 100% reliable then you should keep a backup of your site for various reasons such as:

• You could accidentally erase or overwrite important files
• Scripts you are using might be or become unstable or damage files
• Your website could be compromised by external forces (spammers, scammers, hackers and so on) especially if you have weak passwords causing data to disappear or be altered - even the CIA got hacked Even if your web host offer regular back ups it is still highly recommended that you carry out your own backups as your host may not be able to restore the backups quickly enough or may have a problem with the back up file etc.

Of course you can manually download all your files and data but this is a slow and painful process

The cPanel backup facility is very easy to use, just log into your cpanel and click on backup and you will a screen similar to the one below

Full Backups

Users have the option to generate and download an entire backup file of their account. The link under this section will initiate a copy of the user’s account and compress it into one single file for the user to download.

The file will normally be saved to your home directory where you can simply download it using ftp or if you have an account on another server you can save it to a remote server

Once you have filled the simple form in simply click backup

Home Directory

This will do the same as the full back up but will only copy the home directory - ie: the www folder

Download a MySQL Database Backup

Users have the option of backing up and downloading their databases. Each database within a users account will be displayed here as a link and simply clicking on a link will generate a backup copy of the database and download it to a user’s computer.

Due to the popular demand for such a service http://cpanelbackup.com/ is a third party company that will back up your site on one of its remote servers for a very affordable fee

Restoring a site

Restoring a site is just as easy via the cpanel, however, please note that you should not interrupt a restore once it starts.  Wait until the process is complete before clicking back

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