Backup & recovery
Every hosting plan at WWW4 is backed up daily — both your files and your database. It is included: nothing to order on top and nothing to configure. If something goes wrong, things can be restored to the situation from before the problem.
The question is rarely whether you will ever need a backup, but when. Below are the cases in which it happens, and what you can do yourself to keep recovery straightforward.
When do you need a backup?
An update that goes wrong
By far the most common reason. A plugin or theme update clashes with something else and the site returns a blank page or an error message.
Human error
A page deleted by accident, a file that was overwritten, a setting nobody remembers how to undo.
A hacked site
Usually through an outdated plugin. Restoring a clean version is then faster and safer than trying to clean up.
A database that becomes corrupt
Rarer, but far-reaching: without a database your content is gone, even though your files are still there.
What the backup includes
| Component | What that covers |
|---|---|
| Website files | Your entire web space: CMS, themes, plugins, uploaded images and documents. |
| Database | The content of your site — pages, posts, products, orders, users and settings. |
| The mailboxes on your domain. Bear in mind that mail you collect locally over POP3 disappears from the server. |
Would you like to know how far back a restore is possible for your specific plan, or do you need a restore from a particular point in time? Get in touch — we will check it for your account.
What you are best off doing yourself
A backup from your hosting provider is a safety net, not a substitute for care. These habits save you most of the trouble:
- Make an extra backup before a major change. A CMS upgrade or a new theme is the moment not to rely on "there will be one tomorrow morning".
- Test updates elsewhere first when your site is business-critical — on a test environment or a separate installation.
- Keep a copy of your own as well of your most important files. One backup in one place is not a backup strategy.
- Check now and then that restoring works. A backup that has never been restored is an assumption, not a certainty.
- Keep your CMS and plugins up to date. Most of the restores we carry out involve sites that had not been updated for months.
Need a restore?
Contact support with your domain name, what went wrong and when it was still working. That last point is the most important detail: the more precisely you know it, the more targeted the restore can be. In the meantime, do not keep working on the site, so that nothing is lost that you still need afterwards.
