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.
If you enjoyed this article, get email updates (it's free).
If you're building a business website these days, you're in luck.
WordPress has revolutionized the ease and power of what a website can do and be. Now you can quickly create a website that is optimized for top search results, and update it yourself whenever you want.
As you'll see in a moment, the SmallBiz Theme is much more than a mere WordPress theme. It's a complete solution for your business web presence including a Website, Blog, Facebook Page and Mobile Website.
Let's take a look at each of these, and how they help you generate new business from the web…
Click to continue...See my disclosure about advertising and affiliate links
{ 12 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.
{ 1 trackback }