Website Backups: Best Practices and the 3-2-1 Rule
Proper backups are the difference between business survival and collapse. We explain how to implement a secure backup strategy for your website.
Author: Meiko Neuman
Founder and web strategist, Kodulehe Haldus
The 3-2-1 Backup Rule
The golden standard for all IT systems: - 3 copies of your data - 2 different media types (server + cloud) - 1 copy in a different geographical location
What to Back Up?
A website consists of two parts: 1. Files – theme, plugins, uploaded media (wp-content) 2. Database – all posts, users, settings
If you only back up one, you will not be able to restore the site.
How Often?
| Site Type | Recommended Frequency |
|---|---|
| Static landing page | Once a week |
| WordPress blog | Daily |
| E-commerce store | Hourly |
| High-turnover e-store | Real-time (replication) |
Retention Period
We recommend 90 days. The reason: hacks or data corruption are often only noticed weeks later. With a shorter retention period, you may be forced to restore from an already infected backup.
Free vs. Paid Solutions
Free: - UpdraftPlus (WordPress) – Google Drive, Dropbox - All-in-One WP Migration – manual backups
Paid: - BlogVault – professional, with a restore guarantee - ManageWP – multi-site management - A quality maintenance contract (included as a service)
Test the Restoration!
The biggest mistake businesses make – backups exist, but no one has ever tried to restore them. In a real emergency, you may discover the backup is corrupted. Test the process once a quarter.
Summary
A good backup is invisible until a crisis hits. Then, it is worth its weight in gold.
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Meiko Neuman — Founder and web strategist, Kodulehe Haldus. Meiko leads the Kodulehehaldus team and has spent over a decade helping companies maintain and optimise their websites for measurable business results. He writes about website management, SEO, AEO/GEO and the commercial side of the web.