Why You Shouldn’t Launch a Website Without Backups

“And so, could anything serious happen?” — why backups are often underestimated

This section should not start with technical terms, but with a simple question: when was the last time you checked if your site is stored anywhere other than the main server? If your answer is ‘I don’t remember’ or ‘it’s the developer’s job,’ this part is definitely for you.

I confess, I used to think of backups like a first-aid kit in a car: seemingly necessary, but you hope you’ll never need it. And then there was a client whose hosting failed, and the site that brought in 80% of revenue disappeared along with CRM, orders, and a loyal customer base.

A backup is not ‘insurance just in case,’ but a daily necessity

Honestly? When you talk to an entrepreneur about backups, you often hear responses like: ‘Everything is under control,’ or ‘We’ll do that later, when there are more clients.’ And in this ‘later,’ lies the biggest trap.

The problem is that backup is perceived like an umbrella on a sunny day — why need it now if the weather is perfect? But we live in the digital realm, where a “storm” can strike unexpectedly: a plugin update — and everything breaks, a freelancer accidentally deletes the database, or the server “goes down” without warning.

And another nuance: an entrepreneur is always in the “do and run” mode. Launch a campaign, close a client, optimize the budget — only to remember backup “sometime later.” But sometimes “sometime” never comes. And then the bitter show of recovery begins: calls to developers, digging into Google’s cache, searching for “at least last week’s version of the site.”

The essence is simple: a backup is not a bonus, not a whim, not something “for IT people.” It’s a daily routine, as important as checking client payments or updating stories on social media. If the site is your source of income, then a backup is your safe.

Statistics that make you dig deeper

Numbers don’t lie. They rarely exaggerate. And certainly don’t have “emotions.” But when you start reading into the statistics of losses due to lack of backup — the urge to open your site and check, “is everything really saved?” arises involuntarily.

Look at the numbers that speak louder than words:

• According to the Acronis Cyber Report 2023, 41% of small businesses do not perform regular backups.
• 60% of companies that lost their data closed within 6 months — (source: University of Texas).
• The Veeam Data Protection Trends Report study showed: in 2023, the average cost of downtime for a company was $164,000 per hour. I repeat: per hour.

Sounds wild? But even a small online store with 50 orders a day can lose an annual marketing budget from a day of downtime. Let’s discuss how often you should back up, where to store backups, and how to avoid the trap of the fake “everything is saved”.

When a Site is a Business, Not a Business Card

There’s one mistake that is costly for entrepreneurs — seeing a site as something additional, ‘just because’. But the reality is different: for many businesses, a site is essentially a primary asset. This is where brand introduction, purchases, repeat communication, analytics, and process automation take place. And if this asset is lost, it affects everyone: from SEO specialists to accountants.

One Failure — and You Lose More Than Just Design

Today, a website is not just a pretty picture. It’s a system that generates profit, guides the client through the funnel, collects data, processes orders. And as soon as it ‘falls out of the game’ — the business takes a hit. No exaggeration.

If a business card is lost — unpleasant, but not critical. But what if your site crashes when you’re launching targeted ads for a new product? You don’t just lose money on the budget. You lose traffic, trust, and loyalty that you’ve built over years. A client won’t wait for you to ‘fix’ it, they’ll go to competitors.

In 2021, the Kyiv-based digital agency BrandUp conducted a large-scale campaign for one of the top local clothing brands. Two weeks before the campaign launch, the agency’s website suffered a hacker attack: due to a server vulnerability, the attackers gained access to files and destroyed the data. There were no backups — they didn’t have time to set them up. As a result, the agency lost:

• All application forms from CRM over the last 2 years.
• Portfolio of cases that were only available on the website.
• Landing page for the client’s campaign launch.
• SEO positions that had been built for over a year.

Restoring the website took almost 2 months. Some of the reputational losses were compensated, but two clients terminated their contracts before the end of the first week of downtime.

5 real threats that only a backup can eliminate

An entrepreneur often thinks in terms of profit: what will bring more clients, which channel is more effective, where to save money. But sometimes it’s more important to think not about growth, but about protection. Because what’s the use of profit if the entire digital foundation can be lost overnight?

In this section, you’ll find the most common threats that can destroy your site. What’s more, they can do it quickly, without warning, and without the possibility of rollback… if there’s no backup.

We all love when everything works: the website loads quickly, orders are placed, emails are sent — total bliss. But the digital reality isn’t quite perfect. Imagine: you’re a business owner, launching a marketing campaign, and at that moment, your site crashes. Not because you did something wrong, but because a template update decided to sabotage. Or the hosting ‘shut down’ along with your files. Or someone decided to test SQL injections right on your resource. And there you are, no longer a businessman but a digital rescuer with a mug of coffee and a desire to ‘just return everything as it was’.

Unfortunately, without a backup — it’s like repairing a car without tools. Therefore, below we have compiled five of the most common scenarios, which occur more often than it seems. And believe me, each of them is not a hypothesis but an experience.

Human Error

Making mistakes is normal. But losing a site due to one careless click is a different story. I remember a case of a client: updating a plugin for SEO, accidentally deleted part of the template files. The result? The site broke, pages fell out of Google’s index, leads stopped. And of course, there was no backup. Such cases are not exceptions.

Backup is your safety net. It gives you the right to make mistakes. Even if something goes wrong — you can always return to the ‘pre-disaster’ point and continue as if nothing had happened.

What helps prevent disaster:

• Regular backups (automatic, not “whenever I remember”).
• Saving copies not only on the server but also locally/in the cloud.
• Testing changes in the dev environment before ‘live’ updates.

Remember: mistakes happen. But the question is not whether they will occur. It is whether you will be prepared for them.

Website hacking

We have repeatedly encountered cases where websites were turned into a platform with ‘miracle pills’ in Chinese. Everything seemed fine — until Google excluded the resource from the index and Facebook banned the domain. Recovery without a backup took over a week and resulted in a loss of clients, reputation, and advertising budget.

Consequences of a hack:

• Loss of access to the admin panel.
• Injection of malicious code (often invisible).
• Blocking by search engines and social networks.
• Compromise of client personal data.

And even if you notice the breach immediately, it doesn’t guarantee you will react in time before Google issues you a ‘red card’. A backup is the only way to quickly restore your site to a secure version, avoiding shame, penalties, and reputational damage.

Hosting Issues

You can choose the most expensive plan and receive 24/7 support, but that doesn’t mean your site is protected from all issues. Hosting is just renting space on someone else’s computer. And yes, that computer can be shut down, restarted, lose data, or even… accidentally delete your files. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

What can go wrong:

• The server fails — and your site is unavailable for hours or days.
• No backups available or they are corrupted.
• Data disappears without explanation (and often — without compensation).
• The hosting just shuts down or blocks your account.

Now imagine: it’s peak season, ads are running, orders are coming in… but the site is down. Clients turn to competitors, and you — write to support. At best, you’ll get the reply “we’re already working on it.” At worst — silence.

To not end up with nothing:

• Create your own backups — regularly and independently.
• Do not store all copies only on the server — use cloud services or offline archives.
• Check the hosting policy regarding backups: how often, where they are stored, how many versions are kept.

The moral is simple: hosting is a service, not a wizard. Its task is to provide infrastructure. Your task is to protect the business. And a backup is the only thing that will help in a situation when everything else fails. And trust me, it will fail — sooner or later.

Viruses and Malware

No one expects viruses on their site. But they come. Quietly, unnoticed, through an outdated plugin or a free theme with a “bonus” in the code. And when you, a business owner, think everything is under control — the malware is already working. Redirecting traffic, stealing client data, removing resources from search indexes, or simply breaking the layout. And the main thing — you often find out about it last.

Typical consequences of infection:

• Redirect users to fraudulent sites
• Ban in Facebook Ads, block in Google Search Console
• Loss of trust: customers see danger warnings
• Data compromise – from contacts to payment information

Suppose the site began periodically redirecting users to a casino. Not always, not everyone – only mobile traffic from certain countries. Realized something was wrong only after advertisers’ complaints. And the worst part – all this lasted for a month. Loss of reputation, drop in Google rankings, ads blocked. Without a backup, reverting the site to a clean version was unreal – had to rebuild everything from scratch.

What will help:

• Use verified templates and plugins.
• Regularly update CMS and components.
• Install a security scanner (for example, Wordfence).
• Never store all files only on hosting.
• And most importantly – have a backup that allows you to quickly restore everything.

Keep in mind: infection is not a question of “if”, it’s a question of “when”. And how you respond – depends solely on your preparedness. Backup – is the ability to return to a point where everything was still fine. Like a “Control + Z” button, but for business.

Failure when updating CMS or theme

Updates are always a gamble. On one hand, there’s security, new features, compatibility. On the other, there’s a potential risk of everything going wrong. The worst part is that everything seems innocent. You press “update WordPress”, “update theme” — and in a minute, instead of your site, you see a blank screen or a “fatal error”. Panic, confusion, a few deep breaths — and the first thing you want to do is find a magic “undo” button.

Here’s what can go wrong:

• Theme incompatibility with the new version of WordPress.
• Conflict between plugins.
• Errors in custom code.
• Site crash due to incorrect caching or database overflow.

We have also seen many times how even experienced site owners launched updates “on the fly” — without a dev environment, without a backup. Because “it was fine before”. Then, three days in chat with hosting, manually restoring from the remnants, and mainly — losing sales and traffic.

To prevent this from happening:

• Only update after creating a backup.
• Test changes in a dev version (or at least on a staging server).
• Use child themes to retain customizations.
• Always check the plugin changelog before updating.

Updates are not scary. What is scary is updating without a backup. It’s like diving into a pool without checking if there’s water. And while most times things go smoothly, it just takes once when it doesn’t. And that’s where a backup comes to the rescue, as always. A quiet, unseen, but incredibly valuable copy that one day could save not just a website, but an entire business model.

When even giants stumbled: cases of Toyota, GitLab, and British Airways

Let’s be honest: sometimes it sounds like, “we’re not GitLab, not Toyota, what do we have to be afraid of?”. But that’s the point. Because when giants with million-dollar budgets fail at something simple, it’s a signal: no one is immune. And if you don’t learn from others’ mistakes, you’ll have to go through your own.

Let’s examine what went wrong in the most notable cases — and what even a small online store or marketing agency owner can take from it.

GitLab

In 2017, their system administrator accidentally deleted the production database. The problem? Five (!) different backup mechanisms… were not working. The audience on Twitter watched online as the team tried for hours to save the data. Some of it was recovered — but trust in the platform took a hit for a long time.

British Airways

A technical failure in a data center in 2018 blocked booking systems. 75,000 passengers couldn’t fly, websites went down, and compensations exceeded £80 million. The main mistake? A lack of a duplicate environment and automatic system failover.

Toyota

In 2022, a supplier of the company was hacked. Due to the lack of complete data backups, production lines came to a halt across Japan. 14 factories. 13,000 cars that didn’t roll out. The supplier’s backup is also part of your security. Because business is a chain.

What small businesses should take away from this:

• If even top corporations lose control, no one is safe.
• Backup is not just a file in the cloud. It is part of the strategy.
• Spending on backup is always cheaper than dealing with the consequences.

If you say: “Everything works fine for us, why bother with backups?”. Then expect your site to go down due to a plugin virus in six months. If after this you wonder “why?” and “how to regain clients who no longer reach out?”, we’re ready to consult you on all matters.

How often should you back up your website — and where should backups be stored

This is one of those questions no one wants to think about — until disaster strikes. But when the site goes down, time becomes your worst enemy. That’s when you realize: everything was stored only on the hosting server, and the last backup — at best — was a month ago. So how many times a week should you back things up? Where should the files go? And most importantly — how do you avoid saving “empty hope” instead of real, restorable files?

If you’re looking for reliable website backup solutions, reach out to us. The 6weeks team not only builds websites, but also sets up systems that back up your data regularly. Message us — and we’ll discuss all the details.

A Simple Backup Strategy for Non-DevOps People

If you’re not a server-room-dwelling CTO, but a business owner, marketer, or someone running a small studio — you need a reliable, simple, and secure backup strategy. No tech madness required.

Before we dive into tips, let’s make one thing clear: a backup isn’t a single copy — it’s a system. And it needs to be automated. Human error is unreliable. To keep it simple, here are 4 golden rules of backup for small and medium businesses:

1. Daily backups are a must. If you run an online store, a lead-gen landing page, or a frequently updated blog — daily copies are critical.
2. Keep at least 3 latest versions. One might be corrupted, another might already contain malicious code.
3. Store copies in two separate locations. For example, one on your hosting server and another in the cloud (Google Drive, Amazon S3, Dropbox). Ideally, a third on an external drive.
4. Automate everything. Most CMS platforms (WordPress, OpenCart, Tilda) offer plugins or integrations for automatic backups. Set it up once — and let it run on autopilot.

Bonus tip: never store your backups on the same server as your website. That’s like keeping your spare key… in the same wallet as your main one. If the wallet is stolen — you lose everything.

Shopify is one of the world’s largest e-commerce platforms. But even it doesn’t automatically back up customer stores. It’s written clearly in their official docs. Why? Because the responsibility lies with the business owner.

That’s why many Shopify users integrate services like Rewind.io, which make daily backups and allow full restoration down to a specific minute. And guess what? Over 100,000 businesses use it every day. Because they’ve learned the hard way.

How to Know Your Backups Are Safe: A Checklist for Website Owners

Talk is talk — but now it’s time for a quick check. Right now. No developers, no “give me the admin login,” no stress. Just sit down, open a notebook (or Google Docs), and honestly answer these simple questions.

You can’t manage what you don’t control. Backups are like airbags: you don’t think about them every day, but they’d better be there. Here’s a short checklist — just 7 points — to help you understand if your site is protected from the “what if”:

1. When was the last time you backed up your website? If you don’t remember — that’s a bad sign.
2. How many backup versions do you currently have? One is not enough. Minimum three.
3. Are the backups stored in different locations? One server doesn’t count. You need a “Plan B.”
4. Is the backup process automated? Manual backups are like alarms without snooze — you’ll eventually oversleep.
5. Have the backups been tested for usability? A backup that doesn’t open is not a backup — it’s a false sense of security.
6. Is the database backed up separately from the files? Restoring images without orders is like building IKEA furniture without the manual.
7. Is someone responsible for checking the backups? “I thought Vasyl was doing it” — is not a strategy.

If you confidently answered “yes” to 5–7 points — congrats! You’re among the top 20% of responsible website owners. If not — now’s the time to sound the alarm and set things up before it’s too late.

One more thing: don’t be lazy — once a month, open a backup manually and check it. Make sure it’s complete. Because the only thing worse than “no backup” is “a backup that exists — but is empty.”

Conclusion: Better to make one backup than to look for a new job

Backups aren’t about “tech stuff” or “I’ll do it later.” They’re about common sense and protecting your business. And if you’ve read this far, something inside you has probably clicked: “I need to check if everything’s saved.”

Because your website isn’t just code and images. It’s your hard work, your investment, your customers’ trust. And a backup is the safety net that keeps you from falling all the way down if you slip.

Imagine this: you wake up in the morning, open your site — and it’s just a blank white screen. Panic sets in. Ads are running, customers are visiting, your CRM won’t open. What now?

If you have a backup — you make a coffee, call your developer and say, “Okay, let’s restore it.” If not? Get ready for a long and painful journey called “can we recover at least something?” So here’s what you should do today:

• Check if you have recent backups of your site.
• Find out where and how they’re stored.
• Set up automated backups if you haven’t already.
• Set a reminder to check your backups at least once a month.

Now a question for you: When was the last time you checked your backups? And if you want peace of mind but don’t have time to figure it all out — message us. Our team will set it up for you. Because a “$10/month backup” is a lot cheaper than a “$2000 new site + lost traffic.” Don’t wait. Backups are power. And that power should be in your hands.

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