Have you ever accidentally deleted a file on your computer? Was it important? Did you suffer? Well, imagine if your whole website got deleted! This could happen in any number of ways:

    * You accidentally delete the files on your web server

    * Your host's server crashes

    * The hard drive on your web server fails

    * A hacker gets into your system and deletes all your files

    * Your web server gets a virus

    * Someone accidentally overwrites your web files with an older version

These sorts of things happen to thousands of web masters every day! Even experienced webmasters who should know better lose their files on their web server.

What to do?
Can you imagine having to build your website from scratch again? Quite a daunting task. Imagine having to remember everything that was on your old website and recreating it. It is very near impossible. The longer your site is up and the more you have added to it the more difficult it will be. However, with a bit of foresight and planning, losing your website files will be just a blip in a normal day, with minimum disruption.

The most important thing to do is to back up your website. In fact, if you haven't done it before, you should suspend reading this article and go and back it up now. If you used FTP to upload your site you will be able to use the same program to download your site. If you have a small site you may be able to use your browser's 'Save Web Page' feature to save each individual page. Work out whichever is the best way to get the webfiles onto YOUR computer, and do it!

Ideally you will need 2 backups of your site, one to save at home, and another to store offsite in case something happens to the first backup. Make sure you label your backups clearly and put them in a safe place where you can find them later. I have to emphasize this last point as I once backed up a website but later couldn't find where I put the backup when I needed it! Disastrous.

If you update your site on a regular basis you will need to backup on a regular basis too. It is essential that you label each backup correctly with the website name as well as the date. The date is necessary so that you don't copy an older version of a website if something happens to the newer one.

For larger websites which are constantly changing you will need to install a RAID disk on your web server. RAID disks are basically two disks writing the same information so that 2 copies are created on the fly. Very useful. Ask your web host if he uses RAID disks. It is important to note however that you will still need to do regular backups.

One experienced webmaster relied on RAID disks alone for his backup, however the web server had a virus on it so the backup had to roll back by a month. He lost a month's worth of work he had done on his website, which was quite an amount as he was changing the design and adding a lot of content. If he had only backed up it would have been no problem instead of becoming the huge headache it did for him.

Remember, there are 3 words you need to remember to protect yourself from a mountain of work if your web files are compromised - BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!

Edward Sodor has been a part of the webmaster community for nearly 10 years and is always happy to give advice to budding webmasters. For great tutorials on creating, maintaing and improving your website and traffic visit his Website Design and SEO pages.

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