Backup
A backup is a saved copy of your entire website — files, content, and database — that can restore everything if your site is hacked, broken by an update, or lost. It's the safety net that turns a disaster into an inconvenience.
Also known as: backups · website backup · restore
In plain English
A backup is a complete saved copy of your website at a moment in time — every page, image, and piece of data. If something goes wrong later, you can roll the site back to that copy and carry on. A good backup runs automatically every day and is stored somewhere separate from your site, so whatever takes the site down can't take the backups with it.
Why it matters for your business
Ask yourself one question: if your site disappeared tonight, could you get it back to how it looked yesterday? If you're not sure, that's the problem. A bad update, a hack, or a hosting mistake can wipe out years of work in seconds. With a recent backup, the same event is a quick restore. Without one, it can be the end of your website.
The catch most people miss
A backup you've never tested, or one stored on the same server as your site, is barely a backup. What matters is a recent copy, kept somewhere safe, that someone can actually restore quickly when it counts.
Common questions
- How often should my site be backed up?
- For most business sites, daily is the sweet spot — more often if you're a store taking orders. The goal is that if something goes wrong, you lose hours of work, not days.
- Where should backups be stored?
- Somewhere separate from your site — a different server or cloud storage. A backup kept on the same hosting as your site can be lost in the same event that takes the site down, which defeats the whole purpose.
Related terms
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