Hi Elizabeth,
It’s great that you realized you should be backing up your blog. One never knows when something could go terribly wrong.
I use and recommend the BackWPup plugin.
I wrote a post about Backing-up WordPress websites just a few days ago. If you’re interested you can read it here.
Although backing up onto your server is safer than to not backup at all, I do recommend backing up to a remote site. If someone – or something – gets access to your files your backup files could be compromised as well. On the websites that I maintenance I typically do a complete backup – all files, database, posts/pages export – twice a week. I then also backup the database the the pages/post export every other day. I set the times to early morning – like 2 or 3 a.m. when there isn’t much traffic.
Please let me know if you need any more help!
Thank you for replying, Patrick. Is that plugin compatible with version 3.0.1? I haven’t updated, because when I start to, I get messages that I need to back up first :-/
I also don’t understand about backing up to my server or a remote site. Could you please explain that a little bit more, so I understand what to do?
I appreciate your help very much,
Elizabeth
Sure, no problem!
I cannot guaranteed that the BackWPup plugin is compatible with WP v 3.0.1.
There are other plugins available that perform similar tasks. If you want to be 100% certain I can recommend you the WP-DBManager plugin. This plugin only backs up your database – not your files and the WXR (the export of the content of your pages and posts.)
It’s very rare that something drastic will happen when you upgrade but I would still recommend backing up.
Backing up to your server means the backup files are stored on your server – the same place where all the WordPress files are stored. Backing up to a remote site simply means that it’s not located on your server and is therefore more secure because if your WP blog/website is hacked then those files won’t also be compromised.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
