I recently posted an article on detailing general guidelines for backing up a WordPress website. In that article I briefly touched on backing up an e-commerce website, but didn’t go into great detail. Thankfully, most of what I wrote there applies to backing up an e-commerce website:
- Don’t rely on your webhost
- Choose a backup method
- Choose a backup schedule
- Save backups off-site
- Check in and test once in a while
Step 3 above has special implications to e-commerce websites, especially those with high traffic and sales: Choose an appropriate backup schedule.
Real-time backups
We recommend that e-commerce websites be backed up on a real-time basis. Daily backup schedules usually occur at a specific time of the day. Depending on the service chosen, the website owner might not have control over when the backup runs. Since e-commerce sites undergo multiple changes per day, an outage occurring in the middle of the day could mean lost or missing sales. Real-time backups ensure that any change made to the site is immediately saved as a snapshot, and lost transactions are no longer a worry.
Services that offer real-time backups
The list of services that currently offer real-time backups is unfortunately small. Hopefully that changes soon:
- VaultPress
- blogVault (They say they do real-time backups, but I can’t find where it’s offered on their site. Might be coming soon. Also affiliate link.)
- Right here at Cinch, as part of our E-Commerce Suite!
If you know of any other services that offer real-time backups for WordPress and e-commerce, leave a comment below!
