Frequently Asked Questions
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WordPress Backup Service
What gets backed up?
Your WordPress website. More specifically the WordPress software and everything that you added, created or modified via the WordPress admin area. More specifically your WordPress software, all of its plugins, themes, settings, content in the Media Library and all of the other content you added through your WordPress admin area.
What's NOT backed up?
If you have content on your website that was not added through the WordPress admin area, such as if you or your developer uploaded images via FTP to the server and then referenced those images on your site, then those would not be included. Our backup service does not backup your server, only your WordPress website.
Do the backups slow down my server?
95% of the backup is done on our server infrastructure, which is a blessing for your web server PHP memory. Additionally we run an incremental backup solution so that only changes need be backed up once the original backup is made; which also dramatically reduces the strain on your server.
How long are backups saved?
We save each backup for 90 days. This is much better than you will find in most other backup services which save backups for 30 days; and essential because if your website is hacked, it is often more than 30 days between when a hacker breaks into your website and you realize it.
When are Monthly backups made?
If you ordered Monthly backups, we make one backup as soon as service begins, and then we typically make one backup near the end of the month. We schedule it this way specifically for customers who also order Monthly Update Service, which is performed at the start of each month. This way if there are any issues that arise from updating any of your software, we have a recent backup to restore back to.
Where are backups stored?
Your backups are stored securely and remotely on Amazon S3 servers.
How do I restore my site to one of my backups?
Contact us with your request and we will restore to the backup of your choice.
Can I upload backups to my own cloud storage service?
Yes. We can automatically upload backups weekly or daily to your account on Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, and OneDrive. This option is charged separately depending on the size of your website and how frequently you want backups sent, but the extra cost is reasonably priced. Just ask.
We can even specify how many backups are stored on your storage service if you want to, for example, only have the most recent 10 backups archived on your storage service and the rest deleted automatically as new ones are added.
WordPress Update Service
What gets updated?
We update your WordPress core software and all plugins and themes that appear in your admin dashboard under their respective admin page.
I do not want a specific theme or plugin updated
If you do not want a theme or plugin, or any number of them updated, contact us and tell us which plugins or themes you do not want updated. We will mark them as such and they will not be updated. (Why would someone want this? Sometimes people modify the code of a plugin or theme and updating it would over-ride those changes.)
Premium Plugins and Themes requiring payment
Some premium plugins and themes require periodic payment to continue access to updates for that premium service. If we are unable to update a plugin or theme because it requires a payment by you, then we will email notify you of this and place the plugin or theme on “Do Not Update” status until we are notified by you that payment has occurred.
When are Weekly Updates made?
Weekly updates are usually performed on Sunday or Monday. 2x/week updates are also usually performed on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on when the last updates were performed, with the intent to evenly space out the two updates in the week.
Do you check our website after updates?
After we perform updates to your website, we check the home page of your website using our HTTP(S) monitoring service. If there is an indication that it is down, we manually check it to confirm and then contact you if it is.
If you would like a more thorough check of your website after updates, please contact us for a price quote based on your needs.
Pro Service: Uptime Monitoring
Monitoring Type
We use an HTTP(s) monitor to monitor uptime of your home page by default. This is ideal for website monitoring, this or using the keyword monitoring. If you would like to use keyword monitoring, let us know what keyword you want monitored, for which website. You can also request to have additional pages of your website checked for a nominal extra per page fee.
Monitoring Interval
The default Monitoring Interval is to check your home page every 5 minutes. You can request to have this set to check your site every 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 15 minutes.
Monitoring Notification
Uptime / Downtime Activity is reported on your monthly report. We can also send downtime and update alert notifications to you via email & SMS by request, which is included in the cost of your plan.
Are my website stats affected?
No, they are not. Most analytics services (like Google Analytics) use JavaScript to collect data and monitoring requests don’t trigger JavaScript.