Backing up website database is the most important process every blogger must do. Shit happens and no one knows when your server might get crashed or hit by an attack that would need a total reset. However, taking a backup needs a bit more attention and focus than normally thoughts. You cannot simply open the PHPMyAdmin and Export the entire database as a dump file.
When you reach a good number of total blog posts then its important to back up the database at least weekly or daily depending on your blog posting frequency.
Following is a short checklist to follow to make sure your backed up dump file works with the fresh CMS installation.
It doesn’t matter what CMS you are using. Whether WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or a Custom PHP or ASP.Net application. Each CMS has a database that will need to be backed up just in case things go wrong.
Making a List of Active Plugins and Mods
If you are using WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or other such Open Source CMS, then it has hundreds of plugins and mods that you can use and you probably have few tens of plugins already installed on your blog or website.
But you need to note down every active plugin that is running on your website. Many a times you install a plugin but have not activated it.
The thing is, when you use a plugin, many a times it will create its own table on the database to store data that it process. When your website crashes and when you back up the database and use it on a fresh installation of your CMS. Then it might not work since you do not have a plugin installed or active. It is necessary to install every plugin that you were using before the crash.
If you are using a back up plugin then basically it has an option to back up such extra tables used by plugins along with the main data tables.
Backup Regularly
If you have more than hundreds of blog posts then it is important to back up the data regularly. Be religious or else you won’t just loose data but also rankings on search engine results page.
Search engines would probably block or remove all the page not found error pages from their results page making you loose all the rankings. That can highly reduce your organic traffic.
You might also loose a high number of comments and other user interactions on your blog.
Backup the Theme Files
If you are using an Open Source CMS then you have probably modified the default theme files whether CSS or the main template PHP files. Basically files are modified to include advertisements or other custom widgets. So it becomes necessary to back up the modified theme files too. When you do a fresh install, the default theme files are used and you might have to think about your previous changes and work on modifying it again.
So it is important to note it and back up your website template files too.
Good article, it is good to backup the configuration too. There are tools to do all that job automatically and send encrypted archives of files and database to emails, ftp (can be your computer at home), or on your sever. Like Website 2 Backup.
Axel Giqueaux recently posted..We are building Website2Backupcom
Hi, There are components and modules available for backup based on the CMS which you are using.For example if you are using joomla means you have to download the most famous component called ‘akeeba’ and for drupal you have to download modules.It’ll be helpful
If you’d like to override the first one, you’d need to make available your storage as a standard file system folder, Nice resource !