How Often Should You Back Up Your Website?

Website backups are the safety net that lets you recover from hacks, broken updates and human error. Almost everyone agrees they matter — but how often should you actually take one?

The honest answer depends on how often your site changes. Here is how to choose the right frequency and avoid the most common backup mistakes.

Match backups to how often you change things

The simplest rule is to back up often enough that you would be comfortable losing everything since the last one. For a site you rarely touch, weekly may be fine.

For an active site — a shop taking orders, or a blog you update regularly — daily backups make far more sense, because a day’s worth of lost data could be significant.

Back up everything that matters

A proper backup includes both your files and your database, since both are needed to fully restore a site. A half-backup can leave you unable to recover properly.

For online shops, the database holding orders and customers is especially precious, so frequent, complete backups are essential.

Store backups safely

Keep backups somewhere separate from the website itself. If a backup lives only on the same server and that server fails or is hacked, the backup can be lost too.

Keep more than one recent copy. If a problem went unnoticed for a few days, you may need to restore from before it started.

Test that they work

A backup is only useful if it can actually be restored. Periodically check that your backups are complete and that a restore works, so you are not caught out in an emergency.

Automating backups removes the risk of forgetting, and a care plan can handle the whole process — including testing — for you.