Before we get to the juicier details, I used to be confused about this backup business not long ago. I had no idea what in the world backing up a site was all about. Heck, I had no idea how to create full backups of my WordPress site until circumstances forced my hand. I had to learn after getting hacked, and learn I did.
As a newbie, you’re prolly as confused as I was. So what the hell are backups? The answer is fairly simple. A backup is simply a copy of your site that you can reinstall (restore) should something go wrong. It’s a failsafe, precautionary measure that saves you a lot of undue stress. It’s like an insurance policy that protects all the effort, time and money you’ve invested in your WordPress site.
Now, to give you a clearer picture, I will delve further into what constitutes a full WordPress backup. Your WordPress site is made of two components, the first being files i.e. theme/plugin files, scripts, media etc that make up the structure of your site, and provide functionality. Then we have a MySQL database that stores your blog posts, comments and the options you set in your WordPress admin area.
A majority of cheap web hosts will talk of offering backups, but all they do is backup your MySQL database only, if they backup anything at all. They don’t backup your files, which means you can’t recover changes you make to your theme for example, if it’s corrupted. It’s also quite the hassle requesting a copy of your website from their backups, so its just best to backup your site on your own. You know, just to ensure everything is safe.
The full backup we are helping you build here will take care of your files as well as your database. This means should you lose your site, you just need to reinstall the backup and your work is done. That out of the way, let’s create full backups of your WordPress site.