I have been blogging for about six-ish months. I taught myself everything from setting up my hosting, uploading themes, installing new plugins, etc. I kinda felt like a pro until I tried to install a new plugin and it totally erased my site! My posts, my DIY sewing patterns, my sales, alll my pictures and links – everything that I had been working on for months was gone! I ran to Google and searched frantically for a way to bring my site back up. Every search brought up two ways to restore your site without a backup: copying your source code on Google Cache and using the web archive.
So I tried both ways because I had nothing to lose. I just wanted my website back.
I got my source code from Google Cache but I couldn’t do anything with it. I watched Youtube Videos and read a bunch of articles but I could not figure out where I could put the source code to bring my website back. I tried to paste it into a post and then tried to paste it in my theme and neither worked.
The web archive was pretty much a screenshot of my website from a date in April. It was really cool to see the screenshot of my website but most of the the links did not work so I could not see all my posts or all of my pages. It also did not have all of my new posts.
Sooo, how do you recover your WordPress without a backup?
Feeling pretty defeated, I reached out to Bluehost, my amazing hosting company, at 2am via chat. I explained to the rep what happened and she used her tools to see if they had a backup of my website on their end. To my surprise, the rep came back with THREE backups that I could choose from: one from a month ago, a week ago, and a day ago. I chose one and the rep submitted an escalation ticket. Within 12 hours, I had my website back. Everything was back – all my posts, sales, pictures – everything!
How to recover WordPress without a Backup?
- If you have no backup at all, reach out to your hosting company – whoever your hosting company is! Bluehost usually has three recent backups of your website. They can restore it for your on their end. You can contact them over the phone or via chat!
- I also know that WordPress.org has a few backups too. I accidently contacted them thinking they would be able to help and they informed them that if they were my hosting company, they would have had a backup available.
Once I got my website back up, I started to research ‘Wordpress Backup Plugins’ because I can’t have my website down like that again. I decided to use Jetpack and got a pretty good deal with them thru Bluehost. It is only like $4 a month! I will pay that gladly for peace of mind and so I can be better prepared just in case it happens again. Fingers crossed that it doesn’t!!!
Sending you lots of love and light,
Jackie
