WordPress plugins are an easy way to protect a valuable company asset, your site. That includes the content of your website or blog, making up the sum total of your business’s online marketing, communications, branding and even intellectual property.
A report this week of a vulnerability in WP Banners Lite, a WordPress plugin designed to help site owners insert and manage ad banners, is a reminder of just how easily your data can be put at risk.
Fortunately, there are other WordPress plugins that provide a solution, allowing you to back up your valuable data and protect it from malware and hackers. In a recent Computerworld post, tech writer Jack Wallen looks at some of the best WordPress plugins to protect your business site. Let’s explore them below.
WordPress Plugins That Protect Your Site
BackupBuddy
Blogger Salman Ashan tells his story of having his site hacked several times and of the danger of relying on your Web host to protect your site from attack. In each case, Ashan says he was able to recover his data and writes about the features of the BackupBuddy WordPress plugin including WordPress security, migration and restoration, WordPress backup and other features. Mastermind Blogger
BlogVault
Site owner Zac Johnson gives us a detailed look at BlogVault, a paid service which lets you do the equivalent of backing up your server every few hours. Johnson catalogs a number of problems from denial-of-service attacks to coding issues, which can wipe out a blog and the hundreds or even thousands of pages of content created for it. ZacJohnson.com
myRepono
Freelance software developer Tony Brown gives us an overview of this WordPress plugin, another premium tool. This one backs up your data on the service’s own servers monthly, weekly or even hourly depending upon the business of the site and your needs. The service backs up both code files and database, meaning both content and design of your site is preserved and can be restored in the event of a problem. QuickstepIT.net
Online Backup for WordPress
WordPress developer Joost de Valk divides WordPress plugins for data protection into two groups. There are plugins that automatically back up your data to your own server or email files and those that save data to a remote and safe location. Of these two choices, de Valk clearly prefers the latter. De Valk gives an overview of a plugin that does just that, Online Backup for WordPress. Yoast
The dowload page for this free WordPress plugin says it allows you to “Create a instant live backup of your database with just a click of a button and restore your database just as fast.” Here’s a page of frequently asked questions about the tool to give you a better feel for how it works and whether this plugin might be for you. WordPress.org
XCloner
Sarah Gooding, a partner in Untame, a digital boutique marketing company with a specialty in open source content management systems and social networking, explains the features of this free WordPress plugin allowing backup of your files and database through a customizable dashboard. The plugin is also open source, giving other developers the opportunity to add features over time. WPMU.org
Combining two popular online tools, WordPress and Dropbox, this WordPress plugin backs up data to the storage site for safe keeping, another example of backing up your data elsewhere in case of an attack or other problem. Here, trainer Ed Andrea gives us an overview of how to install this WordPress plugin using step by step instructions and illustrations. OSTraining
Backup Scheduler
Developer Agbonghama Collins says he uses this WordPress plugin for his own site. The plugin allows backup of an entire site, including folders, files and database. Collins says the plugin can be customized to select the kind of data to save, how often to save and whether the data is saved on your server, in email or on a remote data base. Tech4Sky
When your blog or website is a part of your business, you can’t have it failing on you. One well-known site owner says he would have suffered serious down time without this WordPress plugin. The plugin is a paid tool with several different versions, but prides itself on storing all of a blog’s content and code, right down to comments and revisions of your posts. John Chow dot Com
UpdraftPlus Backup
This WordPress plugin is a distinct improvement over predecessor Updraft, writes blogger and owner of the website Social Web Tools, Charnita Fance. The new plugin encrypts your saved data and then you can choose to back it up on Amazon S3, Google Drive, FTP or email. You can also set different schedules for database and file backup. ManageWP
Your blog is an important part of your business. Sometimes it IS your business.
WordPress plugins can help you secure that business by protecting the content you create.
Plugin Photo via Shutterstock
Thanks for the mention of my review in your excellent post.
Mark @ ThinkTraffic
Great post Shawn.
Security is something a lot of people forget about, but if your website is your business (as is the case for most of my clients) security should be a top priority.
Nice collection, but you have added 5 backup plugins. Why you don’t add limit logins attempts? because its helps a lot to keep the site away from the reach of hackers.
Great job, TJ!
Backing up our stuff is so important these days.
You presented some great choices.
The Franchise King®
Not only do you need a plugin like these for backup, but you need to keep all your plugins and themes updated. Old versions are often the target of hackers and can lead to the problem you’re trying to prevent.
Phil Richards
Great post Shawn,
I had not realized there was such a range of backup options available. I use Backup Buddy which I love and suppose that I have complacent with the support that it provides.
Following your post I’m going to investigate some of these other options to improve my site resilience.
Martin Lindeskog
Shawn: The automatical backup service to Dropbox sounds like a good idea. I will show your post to my friend who is taking care of our WordPress sites.
Anne
Great list, Shawn. I might add a spam-comment blocking plugin like Akismet to that list as well.
Steve
The WP Content Copy Protection plugin is another great plugin for content protection (text and image). Well worth having a look at. Source is: http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-content-copy-protection/