Remember the time when Kokidokom went down last month? Well, it’s always a good idea to backup your blog just in case so you won’t suffer extensive content loss. Wordpress has multiple ways to backup your blog. I will outline some of the ways you can back up your blog.

1. Wordpress Export

While the built in Wordpress export feature won’t export data generated by your plugins, it allows you to export the most important stuff like your posts, pages, comments, categories, tags and authors. To use this feature, go to Tools > Export. From there, you can download the XML file containing all your content.

To restore your backup, just go to Wordpress > Import to restore your posts.

2. Database Backup

If you don’t want to lose your plugin settings, links, etc, you might want to do a database backup. The easiest way to get a backup of all your Wordpress Database is getting the GD Press Tools Plugin. After you activate it, go to GD Press Tools > Database. Click on the Backup Tab and be sure to uncheck DROP IF EXISTS. Then, click Backup. A backup file will generate and be shown in the list of backups available to download.

To restore, use phpmyadmin.

There are other Wordpress plugins out there that allows you to do the same such as WP-DB-Backup that allows you to set automatic backups. If you have access to CPanel, that is also another way to obtain your backup via phpmyadmin.

After obtaining the backup, it’s always a good idea to test your backups… sometimes they don’t export properly, leaving you with half of what you should have. For instance, if you want to test you backup, download and run MAMP and import your SQL file using phpmyadmin on localhost.

If you are not comfortable with the mysql database, a Wordpress Export would be the best way to go.

As for downloading the site files, you must manually do that by dragging your site files from FTP and putting them into a folder on your computer. The best idea is to do this every few months so you won’t lose your pictures, themes and plugins.