Security
Website Backups
Automatic daily backups of your website so you can restore in minutes — never lose your site to an update or mistake.
Overview
Website Backups explained
Website backups are saved copies of your entire site — pages, images, settings and database — kept safely so you can restore everything if something goes wrong. They are your safety net for the day an update breaks a page, a plugin misbehaves, or someone deletes the wrong thing. With Cockatoo, we back up your site automatically every day and store those copies off-site, ready to roll back in minutes.
Plenty of small-business owners only think about backups after a disaster, when a botched update or a hack has already wiped out hours of work. By then it is too late. A reliable backup turns what could be a panicked, expensive rebuild into a quick, calm restore.
Because our backups are stored separately from your live site, they stay safe even if the site itself is compromised. You get the reassurance that your work is never more than one restore away from being back.
What to check
Key points
- Automatic daily backups, so your latest work is always captured without you remembering to do it.
- Off-site storage that keeps copies safe even if your live site is hacked or fails.
- Quick one-click style restore, turning a disaster into a few minutes of recovery.
- Full backups covering files, images, settings and your database — not just part of the site.
Before you start
What you'll need
- A site that would be painful to lose or rebuild from scratch.
- Admin access so backups can be configured and restores carried out.
- A sense of how often your site changes, to confirm daily backups are enough.
- Enough storage allowance for the number of backup copies you want kept.
- An email contact for backup success and failure notices.
Process
How it works
- Turn on automatic daily backups for your whole website.
- Confirm backups are stored off-site, separate from your live server.
- Choose how many days of backup history you want to keep.
- Test a restore once so you know recovery works before you ever need it.
- Restore in minutes any time an update, mistake or attack causes a problem.
Avoid these
Common mistakes
- Having no backups at all, then facing a full rebuild after one bad update.
- Storing backups on the same server as the live site, so a hack or crash takes both out.
- Never testing a restore, only to find the backups were incomplete when disaster strikes.
- Keeping just one copy, so a problem that goes unnoticed for days overwrites your only good version.
Common questions
Website Backups FAQs
How often should my website be backed up?
For most small businesses, automatic daily website backups are the right balance. They mean the most you could ever lose is a day of changes. If you update your site many times a day, more frequent backups can be arranged, but daily covers the vast majority of needs.
Where are the backups stored?
We store your backups off-site, separate from the server running your live website. This matters because if your site is hacked, crashes or has a hardware fault, the backup is untouched and still available to restore from. A backup kept on the same server can be lost alongside the site.
How long does it take to restore my site?
In most cases a restore takes just a few minutes. Because we keep full copies of your files, settings and database, recovering is usually a matter of selecting a recent backup and rolling the site back to that point, rather than rebuilding anything by hand.
What is the difference between backups and website security?
Security tries to stop bad things happening — blocking malware and hacks. Backups are what save you when something happens anyway, letting you restore a clean version. The two work together: security reduces the risk, and backups guarantee a way back if that risk ever lands.
Related pages
Keep exploring security
Related reading