I don’t know if anyone noticed, but for a few hours a couple of days ago links going to different places on my website didn’t go anywhere. This is because something went wrong! I was getting ready to go to work and I visited my website, clicked on a navigation link as I was checking something and WHAM! Error 404 your page can not be listed? I then kicked into “WTF gear” and started to investigate why this was happening. I hadn’t changed much on my website all day, uploaded a few files and fiddled around with some settings. I wouldn’t have thought anything I did would have completely stopped links working but all I knew is it weren’t working and visitors were not able to visit posts or do anything. I had to fix it, and quick!

I paid a visit to HostGator support which is absolutely amazing and their live chat investigated what was going wrong and they identified something was missing, I don’t know how it was because I couldn’t remember removing it and the fact being I don’t know what I had removed! Time was running short so I had to go to work. Once I returned I logged on and started to upload some files and overwrite old ones but still no change and I were now annoyed.

I had backed up my website put it in a local folder. I had previously thought, the backup I create will not be used but I’ll keep it anyway. I had to restore the backup and within a few seconds I had a backup installed and it was working again. I experienced a few losses in statistics, some others bit and bobs, but imagine what I would have been situated with if I hadn’t had a backup.

Make Sure You Backup
I urge you to make a copy of your entire website now if you don’t have one. You’ll have comfort of mind and if anything goes wrong you can fix it really quickly. If you don’t know how to backup its simple, a quick search on Google will reveal all.

Choose a Time to Backup
Backing up here and there may lead to times where you forget to do it. Make sure you set yourself a reminder to backup. It doesn’t take long and once it is done you can get on with what you were doing.

Keep your Backup Safe
What use is a backup if you can’t find it. Make sure you place it in a folder which you know you won’t delete. A mistake I’ve done before is placing it in a folder that has something that can be deleted in it. I forget my backup is in there, delete and poof! It’s gone without me knowing, only to figure out that I deleted it ages ago when I create a new backup. Then I’m thinking, thank god I didn’t have any problems! But what if I did? Store your backup on a disk or another form of storage like a USB drive.

It’s very simple and will save you a lot of work if something goes wrong! If you need any help drop me a message.

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