As the owner of a self-hosted WordPress blog, you and you alone are completely responsible for keeping a recent backup of your blog’s database at all times. If there is a server failure, WordPress upgrade problem, or you make a mistake, having a backup is the only way to ensure that you don’t lose any data.
Luckily, there is a very easy-to-use WordPress plugin that can automatically backup your database for you on a regular schedule.
Because of how critical backups are, and how easy it is to set up this plugin, we decided to nag you if you don’t have this plugin installed:
We nag. Why? Because we love.
To remove that nag (and, more importantly, protect your blog’s data), just install the plugin we recommend by following these steps:
Installing the WP-DB-Backup Plugin:
To install the “WP-DB-Backup” plugin to backup up your database, follow these simple steps:
First, go to “Plugins” => “Add New” in the left sidebar of your main WordPress admin area. Then, in the search bar, type in “WP DB Backup” and click to search. (We’ve recently learned that WordPress is no longer pulling results up for “WP-DB-Backup”, not sure why. Instead, if you search for “WP DB Backup” (without the hyphens) or just “backup”, then it’ll pull it up for you.)
The correct plugin should be right at the top. Click the “install” link on the upper right corner.
Then, click the red “Install Now” button.
Once the plugin is installed, click to activate it.
Automating the backup procedure
To set up an automated, regular, scheduled backup of your blog’s database, just go to the plugin’s admin page (“Tools” => “Backup”) and enter your email address and pick a scheduling interval.
The Easy Way Out
If you use a different plugin or method of backing up your database, and want to remove the big red nag, you can also disable it by going to “Appearance” => “P3 Customize” => “Settings” => “Advanced” and entering the following bit of code somewhere in the “Custom CSS” section:
/* backup-nag-off */
