Yes, you need to make a back-up your site regularly.
Never forget backing-up WordPress Blog website unless you are ready to lost your content. A simple back up ( via tools option ) your WordPress database takes one to two minute only.

If you have a WordPress blog website it is extremely important to make back up of your database and files.

This is how WordPress works : The database stores your posts, pages, and comments. All other files ( images, any uploaded material, movies, pdf files etc. store under upload folder.

Here is the simple chart to explain what is stored in the WP website.

Backup WP site

There are a few good plugins to do backup your database.

WordPress supports importing data in the form of posts (articles). Your written content can be import or export. Content Import scripts can be found under Tools → Import menu of your WordPress administration interface.

import/export files

You can also install import / export plugins to your site. I use WordPress Importer. The plugin import posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, tags and more from a WordPress export file.

For backing up your database you may install these plugins:

• WordPress Importer | By wordpressdotorg
• WP DB Backup | By Austin Matzko. With this plugin you can backup to your computer or your email.
• WP Time Machine | by Paul G Petty. This plugin creates an archive of all your WordPress Data & Files and then stores them on Dropbox, Amazon’s S3, or your FTP host.

With a good plugin you can backup your site into a * Cloud services like Drop Box or via an FTP program to your computer’s hard drive.

Do not forget backing up your site is not just the responsibility of the hosting provider. Your hosting provider will usually provide a backup option , but how often they do back up you still need to learn. The database needs to be backed once a week or once a month, depending upon how often and how much content you add to your site.

export as xml file

Keep in mind your content images, movies, pdf files etc are stored in the upload folders. If your server ( in your hosting ) crashes, you will loose all your data. That’s why you need to back up these folders as well. You may use a FTP program to do that to make complete back up of your site, or if you have the option to login your control panel at your hosting provider, (usually a hosting companies supply back up tool/button) back up all your site content there.

If you use FTP, you will see files similar to this:

ftp view

I do offer a website back-up service for my WordPress blog clients, where I use a full site back-up via FTP, which includes saving the entire web directory and database files.  Once the files are saved, I email you a link where you can download the files to save onto your computer or make a CD/DVD for you.

* Cloud-computing services require no software to purchase and install.

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