This WordPress tip covers a subject that has been written about many times over the years. Over the last week I have probably spent more time rescuing sites than actually working on the content. Two of my friends had their WordPress self hosted blogs hacked in what I can only describe as a very curious way. Never the less it was devastating.
It seem that someone had been able to download the latest WordPress upgrade files and rather than installing them into a sub-directory, they had installed them straight into the route directory. Of course this overwrote all their files and made access of their WordPress blog all but impossible. Fortunately I had backed up their blogs the week before. The net loss was a weeks worth of posting.
Having resolved those problems I found that all the domains on the host I use had been hacked with a particular radical page. Fortunately this only involved the removal of the offending index file and renaming of the original file.
Backing up any work is so important in this day and age. If your blog is valuable then back up daily. If possible use a host that provides a daily backup service. If you are doing it yourself, it only takes five minutes at the end of the day to back up your files, particularly your database and store away from your blog. You can safely store it on your PC where it will be safe from any potential problems.
Every day we read plenty of WordPress tips, this is one WordPress you don’t want to ignore. Backup frequently. Backup for peace of mind.
I was just going over ways yesterday to remind myself to back up. My solution was a simple weekly Google Calendar reminder, but I also found plugins that can be set on a scheduled basis to back up the content. If you have access to Cron Jobs on your server, and know how to use them, they can be utilized to back-up everything.
As someone that continually tinkers with my design, none of the plugins I know of offer a feature to back up theme files, so manual is the way to go for me.