With the growth of your website, increasing number of data and information gets accumulated and get stored on your server. In the back-end, the database too keeps on growing with new posts and visitor-comments. But if you are running a static website, you only need to backup is files from your server.

It does not matter how reliable web hosting company hosts your website, it is your responsibility to take steps on your part to safeguard your data. It is a crucial aspect as a webmaster to keep your database and other files backed-up which can help you restore them if at all there is a disaster strike.

If you are running wordpress, Joomla like open Source CMS, you can get Plugins & Components that can help you take a full back-up of your website, but it is equally simple to take a manual back-up to help avoid the chance of a plugin malfunction.

Step 1 : Taking a Back Up of Files

In order to take a manual back-up of your files, an FTP client is required. You must establish connection with the host’s FTP server, then search for the your web directory. Or, you can directly download from the your control panel. There you can go to the File Manager and download the files. But if you are  using very low bandwidth internet connection, you may have problem on downloading one to one files. So, I recommend you to first “zip/archive/compress” the whole website. Then only download that compress/zipped/archived file. So, It can be easier for you to download and there are rare chances of getting cracked of files.

If you are running a joomla website, you will see the almost 15 directory and 10 files in your site. You don’t need to download ‘tmp’, ‘cache’ and ‘log’ files. If you are using cache in your site, then the size may become high, which you don’t need for backup. If you are running WordPress CMS, this should be an easy task, else you’ll need to find the file. You should find a folder named “WordPress”.

You must download the complete directory to your local machine.

Step 2 : Taking Back-up of the Database

As a default feature with your webhosting account, you have the access to manage your database via. phpMyAdmin. Unless you use some other Db administration tool. In that case, the procedures might slightly differ, but there wouldn’t be any difference in its functionality.You now, need to access the phpMyAdmin and look for your database. Once you’ve managed to locate it, look for the Export tab, hit it for exporting the database.

On clicking the Export option, you should see the below screen. In left column, there is a list of all the tables present in your database. Choose SQL as the format for exporting and tick the option Save as file. Click Go, this would export the database. This will download the file that would consist of all the SQL statements necessary for recreating the database. BY default, the file name would be the same as that of your database example : databasename.sql

Step 3 : Restore Your WebSite

Restoring your website is really simple. You are only required to upload your directory onto the server and restore your database from the databasename.sql backup file that you had downloaded in Step 2.

It is highly recommended to use a secure FTP client for restoring the files back onto the dedicated server. You must use the same location as it was when you had downloaded it.

A new database needs to be created before restoring all the data. You can proceed with it by going to phpMyAdmin. You can contact our support department for assistance doing that.

Once done, you need to click Import link.

You’d then be prompted for selecting your database file i.e. databasename.sql

Once you click GO, the database would get restored.