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- Nov 18, 2016
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Hey guys ,
This is not a motivational , journal or help request thread. It is just a reminder for us to always have a backup of our websites , especially the ones we truly care about.
As webmasters , we get carried away by our obsession with SEO , Content & Traffic that we ignore little things like backing up our websites. These little yet seemingly unimportant details could be our life saver down the road , as i've learnt the hard way.
10 months ago (Jan 2018) , i started a new content website that has experienced month-over-month growth in traffic and $$ since July.
I always had it in my mind to have a backup but kept postponing and instead , spent my time chasing content and links. The urge came strongly last week and was at the verge of purchasing a Vaultpress subscription , only for my Paypal to fail and i ended up postponing (yet again).
Then , disaster struck!
2 days ago (30th of October 2018) , My hosting provider mistakingly terminated my service which lead to an automatic deletion of all my files. I had 5 websites on that server and all were wiped out at just a click!
I was livid!
The day before (29th October 2018) , i made a request to the customer service concerning the renewal of a domain i recently sold and transferred to another registrar. I asked her to cancel the invoice since i am no longer in possession of the domain. I don't know how , but she ended up terminating my whole account and deleting all my files from their server.
You know what's worse?
I had no back up of any of the sites. ZERO
They had no backup either since they wiped everything after terminating my service.
So there i was. Back to zero. Months of hardwork wiped out with no backup no whatever.
I cried.
Of all the sites on the server , only one (the one is started 10 months ago) is making money. The rest are either early starters of just empty domains i added to the server.
Luckily for me , i was able to recover the content from google cache (thanks a million times!!). So I spent the last 48 hours rebuilding that site from scratch.
Here's what i did :
- Purchased server at a new host
- Re-issue SSL certificate
- Did a fresh Wordpress installation
- Manually re-build all my pages from google cache while ensuring permalink is same as before.
- Re-write all my Css code for page styling and formatting
- Re-design my theme to be as before while maintaining the same SILO structure.
Imagine doing 10 months worth of work in 48 hours. I had zero sleep. Getting the site back was the only thing on my mind.
Fellas , i'm glad to say that i made 98% recovery with just 2% loss.
The only thing i wasn't able to recover were the 2 new articles i published mid-october as google hadn't cached them yet. I still have them saved in my computer so its not a loss per se. I'll re-publish tomorrow.
In the end , i'm glad everything worked out fine. It could have been worse and i would be seriously depressed right now. I'm thankful to Google Cache!!
The site is back online. Traffic is back to normal. I've made a full backup with Vaultpress (daily backup) and will add Updraftplus (for monthly backups) tomorrow.
I'm glad!!
This is not a motivational , journal or help request thread. It is just a reminder for us to always have a backup of our websites , especially the ones we truly care about.
As webmasters , we get carried away by our obsession with SEO , Content & Traffic that we ignore little things like backing up our websites. These little yet seemingly unimportant details could be our life saver down the road , as i've learnt the hard way.
10 months ago (Jan 2018) , i started a new content website that has experienced month-over-month growth in traffic and $$ since July.
I always had it in my mind to have a backup but kept postponing and instead , spent my time chasing content and links. The urge came strongly last week and was at the verge of purchasing a Vaultpress subscription , only for my Paypal to fail and i ended up postponing (yet again).
Then , disaster struck!
2 days ago (30th of October 2018) , My hosting provider mistakingly terminated my service which lead to an automatic deletion of all my files. I had 5 websites on that server and all were wiped out at just a click!
I was livid!
The day before (29th October 2018) , i made a request to the customer service concerning the renewal of a domain i recently sold and transferred to another registrar. I asked her to cancel the invoice since i am no longer in possession of the domain. I don't know how , but she ended up terminating my whole account and deleting all my files from their server.
You know what's worse?
I had no back up of any of the sites. ZERO
They had no backup either since they wiped everything after terminating my service.
So there i was. Back to zero. Months of hardwork wiped out with no backup no whatever.
I cried.
Of all the sites on the server , only one (the one is started 10 months ago) is making money. The rest are either early starters of just empty domains i added to the server.
Luckily for me , i was able to recover the content from google cache (thanks a million times!!). So I spent the last 48 hours rebuilding that site from scratch.
Here's what i did :
- Purchased server at a new host
- Re-issue SSL certificate
- Did a fresh Wordpress installation
- Manually re-build all my pages from google cache while ensuring permalink is same as before.
- Re-write all my Css code for page styling and formatting
- Re-design my theme to be as before while maintaining the same SILO structure.
Imagine doing 10 months worth of work in 48 hours. I had zero sleep. Getting the site back was the only thing on my mind.
Fellas , i'm glad to say that i made 98% recovery with just 2% loss.
The only thing i wasn't able to recover were the 2 new articles i published mid-october as google hadn't cached them yet. I still have them saved in my computer so its not a loss per se. I'll re-publish tomorrow.
In the end , i'm glad everything worked out fine. It could have been worse and i would be seriously depressed right now. I'm thankful to Google Cache!!
The site is back online. Traffic is back to normal. I've made a full backup with Vaultpress (daily backup) and will add Updraftplus (for monthly backups) tomorrow.
I'm glad!!