How to backup your website in Cpanel - Screencast Tutorial - Web Tutorials

Mar 03

How to backup your website in Cpanel - Tutorial

If you have a static website created on Dreamweaver or some other application, there will be a version of your site stored on a computer somewhere. This is your backup. (Tip: burn this onto CD or DVD as well)

If on the other hand you have a Wordpress site or other database driven system, your site is stored online and probably changes frequently. This means that you have no backup!This short tutorial will show you how to make complete backups of your site using Cpanel. It presupposes a few things. They are:

That you have your own hosting package.
You have access to the Cpanel (this is the main administration screen for your domain/s and webspace).

By the way Cpanel is the most common hosting admin system and it makes it easy to do all sorts of important things from creating redirects to backing up. Here we go.

NOTE: If you really want to be thorough, burn this data onto a DVD and store it somewhere safe.

So here are the steps in point form and then there is a photo gallery below that will show screenshots of the Cpanel pages so you know you’re in the right place.

Login to your Cpanel account with your username and password.
Click on the Backups button.
If you have database driven sites click on the MySql links to download those to your computer.
Under the heading Full Backup, click on the Generate/Download a Full Backup link. (not this one!)
Enter your email address into the field and click Generate Backup down the bottom.
When Cpanel has finished compiling everything into one file, you will receive an email. This shouldn’t take long if you have only a small site.
Refresh this screen or return to it later and click the link (which wasn’t there before) under Previous full backups saved in your home directory:
Wait for it to download.
Backup this file and any Database files onto a DVD and store somewhere safe.
Do this whenever you make any major changes to your site!