The Best WordPress Backup Plugin I Could Find . . . . by an Absolute Mile

This is one WordPress Plugin that is ESSENTIAL for Every WordPress Installation

I was loathe to write a headline like the one above at first, as it usually invokes a reaction of  . . . . “Yeh right, heard that one before!” but then I thought about it and do you know what? When it comes to WordPress Backup Plugins, this statement is an absolute understatement for this particular Backup Plugin.

And if you bare with me I’ll explain why.

Firstly, there are loads of Backup Plugins for WordPress all over the internet  . . . . and most of them free, but can I ask you this?

Have you ever tried to reinstall a WordPress Backup from the file that you’ve backed up? I’m sure maybe you have, but I’ll also guarantee that many who are reading this probably haven’t so what I’d like to do is give you the low down on how it usually works.

Most WordPress Backup Plugins don’t backup the complete installation. In other words, if you try to reinstall WordPress from the backup file you still have quite a bit of work left to do. Some won’t backup your WordPress Theme and some won’t reinstall the images. Therefore what you’ll find is, some don’t do “this” and some don’t do “that” and I suppose this is just a consequence of using a free plugin.

But not only that, if you take the time to read the specifications of many paid Backup Plugins then you’ll find that most of those have their limitations as well.

In fact up until recently I hadn’t found one that would back up a WordPress installation in it’s entirety, including your posts, comments, theme, images, plugins, widgets and images etc, etc until I came across this WordPress Plugin.

It’s called Backup Creator.

This WordPress Backup Plugin will quickly backup your WordPress Installation into a .zip file that you can easily use to reinstall it onto another server, if you like, in just a matter of minutes. What you get is a 100% clone of your original website/blog.

So why is this so important?

Well apart from the obvious, being able to backup your WordPress Installation means that you can easily transfer your website/blog to another server, quickly and easily.

This can come in really handy if you have a Web Hosting Provider that you’re not happy with. Maybe they charge too much, maybe their support isn’t up to scratch or maybe you’ve just discovered that their downtime is way too high.

It doesn’t matter what the reason is but the problem is that maybe you’re tied to a web hosting company that you don’t like. And the reason why is it’s an absolute nightmare to shift you WordPress website/blog to new a host, without causing you a load of hassle and risking losing part of your installation along the way.

Well, with Backup Creator this problem is now solved.

So what doesn’t Backup Creator do that it probably should?

Well the only real feature I found that was missing were scheduled backups or a way of making the process automatic. This may be a concern for some as it was to me initially but after I thought about it for awhile I came up with this conclusion.

Scheduled backups can be a problem and the reason why is this . . . . if you don’t update your site regularly you can end up with a lot of backup files that are duplicates and just end up taking up disk space.

And if you do backup regularly the scheduled backups don’t usually coincide with the update anyway so if you lose your data in between the update and the backup, then the update will be lost anyway. Therefore what I’ve found is that the best way to backup my WordPress Installation is to do it whenever I update.

That way you know that if the unexpected happens you’ll always have the latest version stored in a safe place, which brings me to the next important point.

When Backup Creator creates a backup, it will store the files on your server inside your WordPress Installation. Always make sure you upload the files to your computer and save them in a safe place and the reason why is this . . . . recently here in Australia a Hosting company got hacked into and a large amount of websites got erased. This must have been devastating for many as you can expect there would have been some websites that weren’t backed up.

Therefore if you have a WordPress Installation my best advice is to backup your installation whenever you think your update warrants it and then save it in a safe place (or several if you have them) as the worst thing that could happen is you lose all your hard work and then have to start again from scratch.

Backup Creator – a WordPress Backup Plugin.