Those of you who follow my blog know I recommend BlueHost for simple and easy WordPress hosting. WordPress installs and updates are a breeze, you get great U.S. based tech support, and the price is right.
Not to mention you can install up to 100 WordPress sites on a single account!
And here’s another great reason: BlueHost just made it super easy to do automated backups and file-level restores.
New: Site Backup & Restore
The new feature I’m talking about is called Site Backup & Restore. As I wrote in Back up Your WordPress Site it is super important to have an automated backup plan, even if your site is small.
With BlueHost’s Site Backup & Restore, every site in your BlueHost account – including files and databases – are backed up for you automatically every day. Several versions are maintained so that you can go back and restore files, directories, or entire sites if you need to for any reason.
Watch a Video of Site Backup & Restore in Action
There is a free and a Pro version of Site Backup & Restore. The free version will automate backups for you. The Pro version adds the ability to restore individual files and folders, and MySQL databases (which is what WordPress uses.)
If you are using BlueHost, run – don’t walk – and sign up for the Pro version of this feature. At $12.95 for the YEAR it is well worth the peace of mind you’ll get from knowing all of your sites are fully backed up.
If you are considering hosting providers, give BlueHost a try – it’s the best low-cost WordPress hosting around. Why? I give you 5 great reasons here.
p.s. Several of the links in this article are affiliate links. I use BlueHost for most of my websites (over 25 of them) and I also use the Site Backup & Restore Pro feature that I’m writing about in this article.
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Article by » Don Campbell
Don is an entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley. He founded Expand2Web and is the publisher of the Expand2Web Blog and the SmallBiz WordPress Theme.
Don has written 248 articles on Expand2Web
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Don:
Thanks for the heads up. I do have a question. What is the difference between this backup and a Plug-in that you have recommended in the past?
Thanks,
Clinton
Hi Clinton,
Good question – The BlueHost service will back up files and database for all of the sites you have on your BlueHost account. If you have one site and are using a WP plugin that is backing up your files AND database, you are fine.
Okay…this is a little off-topic, but I have been dithering over whether to shift from my wordpress blog to a hosted site. My question is, if I do that, do my subscribers have to resubscribe, or is that magically taken care of with the shift over?
margo
Hi Margo,
You would have to redirect your old URL and RSS feed to your new urls for those. Then you could keep your subscribers, along with any authority that your site has built up in Google’s eyes.
Do you have to sign up for this in your C-Panel or is it automatically already running in the background? I see a way to pay for the pro version but not to install the free version.
Hi Tayler,
I think it is automatically running for you. When I clicked on the Site Backup & Restore icon I was able to download the backup, but not restore individual files until I signed up for Pro.
Don- I too recommend Bluehost to all my clients. And now I am going to try out Site Backup & Restore and will probably recommend it as well. I found you doing a Google search for reviews. We are on the same page about Bluehost so I am glad to hear you recommend this. I blog infrequently, but if I do write about this, I may link to you to show my clients/readers that I am not alone. Can I quote your mother that you are also a genius?
Hi Ken,
Great! Yes I’ve been using BlueHost for over 2 years and am very happy with them. I’ve used the Site Restore before too and it works great.
Feel free to link here – but leave out the genius part
Lucky I found your post.
Yesterday we managed to kill our site (trying to update themes).
It was really bad. Even with Wordpress backup we could not manage to recover the site. We have 600 daily visitors viewing around 2500 pages. Our PR agent managed to push an article in leading newspaper so we expect many more visitors. Menus are in total disaster after we ‘update’. Not able to find anything on the site…
Google brought me to your blog, I purchased the pro package, restored everything from weekly backup (less than 10 minutes) and we are back up.
THANKS! PLEASE POST MORE LIVE (SITE) SAVING POSTS!
Thanks for the info, no one wants to lose a weeks worth of work, a month forget it I would probably just shut down my website. I appreciate you posting this.
My domain was going to expire in 3h…and because i found this site it saved me! Thanks a lot!
sincerly
a bluehost user
Helpful post; thanks! I just switched over to Bluehost for a few of my sites and this is useful info.
Hi,
I’ve just bought BH backup pro. Now do I need to configure the backup in some way ..or it will do everything automatically and I just sit back and relax ?
I’m asking this because before subscribing to it..I think the same options were getting displayed like they are now (i.e. back up, restore with red pro sign on some of them).
Your comments please!
I am thinking to get myself a Pro version of the backup when my blogs already got shape and are sensitive for damages!
This is completely not true. My website was not showing up today. I contacted Bluehost support team. I was told that some files are missing and you need to restore from backup. They checked and at last told me that the back up of my webiste never happened.
Sandeep. You probably did not have the Site Backup & Restore option (which was the topic of this blog post.)
If you have a standard BlueHost account, they do backup your site but do not provide any guarantees – the onus is on you to have a solid backup in case of a disaster. This is true for most hosting providers.
That’s why I was recommending the extra $19.95/year for their Site Backup & Restore feature; with this they keep complete daily, weekly and monthly backups of your entire site.
It makes sense – with $5/month hosting you get the no-frills version, if you want to pay an extra $19.95/year to make sure your site is backed up, then they do the full backups for you. They need to allocate the extra storage space, and the interface, processes, etc. It’s a service pay for on my account, and ALL my sites on that account get backed up.
BTW – if you don’t want to do that, you still have the option to backup your WordPress site manually using tools like the ones I describe in this blog post.
Sandeep- I am with you. SITE BACKUP AND RESTORE DOES NOT WORK! My site crashed on Saturday – I got the “white screen of death”. But I figured it wouldn’t be too big of a deal- after all, I’m paying for a service that backs my site up automatically and can help me bring it back to the state it was prior to the issue occurring. BUT ALL OF THE SITE BACKUPS WERE THE SAME NEWLY BROKEN CODE! FRAUD!!!
Wow, I’m sorry that happened Elaine. Were you paying for the Pro version? Either way that is a bummer.
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