Secure your WordPress website against scripts injections, hacking attempts, and other vulnerabilities. The ultimate WordPress Security Guide [2019]
Looking for WordPress security tips and the ultimate WordPress Security Guide? Keep reading.
Why Do I Need to Worry About WordPress Security?
WordPress Security is one of the major concerns for everyone right now. Each year thousands of WordPress built websites get hacked, lose data, lose access to the website.
Let’s face it. There is no 100% secured system in the world. That is why you need a WordPress Security Guide!
There will always be some risks in your system. However, you must take preventive actions, mitigate risks to make sure your website is not vulnerable to attacks.
Top 10 ways to improve PageSpeed on WordPress websites by using WordPress speedup techniques.
Improve PageSpeed on WordPress websites with the best tips around the web!
WordPress is one of the most used CMSes around the world right now. More than 27% of the total websites are now built by WordPress. WordPress has made it ridiculously easy to create a blog within minutes. However, making WordPress faster has become a tough job. If you want to know the secrets to improve pagespeed on WordPress websites, you have come to the right place.
You can tinker with WordPress categories, tags, widgets, posts or pages either in localhost or in the live server. Nevertheless, if you need a higher ranking on Google and want to have good SEO then you must have to implement WordPress speed optimization techniques.
Fix custom post type 404 error easily with our beginner friendly and step by step tutorial.
Are you struggling with the custom post type error in your WordPress site? Sometimes a slight tweak could make your website inaccessible. But you know- WordPress is the most powerful CMS out there. You can easily find the solution to any problem in the WordPress community.
It can be frustrating to see the message ‘Error! 404 not found‘, while trying to access your custom post. In this short article, we are going to show you how to fix custom post type 404 errors in your WordPress site. Keep reading.
WordPress security tips to recover WordPress hacked website and lockdown WordPress in case of an emergency.
WordPress security is a very important aspect of WordPress. Without proper WordPress security, you can never be sure about your business’s success. Internet live stats states that about 70000 websites get hacked every day on average. Sometimes it is wise to go 100% on security.
In this tutorial, we are covering the essential steps to lockdown WordPress in case of an emergency.
Since more than 32% of websites use WordPress to publish content every day, WordPress is targeted more for hacking. One of the most common reasons of websites getting hacked is using outdated software.
Backup plugins are one of the things that we miss the most. Worry not, we have prepared a list of top Backup Plugins just for you.
Imagine putting all your efforts into establishing a website and then losing all that overnight; It’s nothing short of a nightmare, right?
You can lose your website data for several reasons. Your server can crash, or the website might get hacked, or a faulty plugin can mess up your WordPress site.
However you might lose your data, you can always recover it, if you back up your data beforehand.
Often our hosting providers offer an automatic backup feature. But that is not always the best way to back up your data. If your website is based on WordPress, it’s better that you use a backup plugin to back up your data.
However, among the countless backup plugins available for WordPress, it is not always easy to find out the best one. So, here we have compiled the list of 10 best backup plugins, from where you can choose the one that suits you.
We get asked a lot, “my web host provided me a free automatic backup policy, why do I still need to back up my website data with a WordPress Backup Plugin?”
Yes, it’s true that many hosting providers offer free backup policy. But they don’t really tell you the whole story. First of all restoring data from your host is a complicated process. It takes a certain level of technical knowledge to do so.
However, we cannot just discourage you to use that because it is a complicated process. The truth is, that is not the only thing that is wrong about the automatic backup features offered by your hosting provider. Even if your hosting provider offers you an automatic data backup feature, it’s unlikely that they’ll ever take any responsibility in case something goes wrong.
Don’t believe us? Let’s check out some of the hidden terms you unknowingly accept from renowned hosting providers.
HostGator is not responsible for files and/or data residing on your account. You agree to take full responsibility for all files and data transferred and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on HostGator’s servers. – UNIVERSAL TERMS OF SERVICE AGREEMENT (HostGator)
You agree to back-up all of your User Content so that you can access and use it when needed. GoDaddy does not warrant that it backs-up any Account or User Content, and you agree to accept as a risk the loss of any and all of your User Content. – UNIVERSAL TERMS OF SERVICE AGREEMENT (GoDaddy)
You will be solely responsible for backing-up all Subscriber Content, including any Subscriber Websites off of Bluehost’s servers. This is an affirmative duty. Bluehost is not responsible for the loss of any Subscriber Content.
IT IS SOLELY SUBSCRIBER’S DUTY AND RESPONSIBILITY TO BACKUP SUBSCRIBER’S FILES AND DATA ON BLUEHOST SERVERS, AND under no circumstance will Bluehost be liable to anyone FOR DAMAGES OF ANY KIND under any legal theory for loss of Subscriber files and/or data on any Bluehost server. – User Agreement (Bluehost)
As we can see from the terms above, even if your hosting provider promises you an auto backup policy it is not always guaranteed. So, unless you want to face a sudden loss of data, we recommend you to use a proper backup plugin for WordPress.
Features You Should Look For While Choosing A Backup Plugin
Modern backup solutions have loads of features at your disposal. It’s often hard for a newbie to tell what are the key features that one should look for while choosing a backup plugin for WordPress.So, let’s get to know what are those features that distinguish a good backup plugin from bad ones.
Scheduled Backup Policy: It is without any doubt, one of the most crucial features that you must seek while choosing a backup plugin. A scheduled backup policy ensures automatic website backup on a fixed time, even when you’re not around.
Full Website Backup: Some backup plugins only backs up your database. It’s better to choose plugins that can back up the whole website. A full website backup includes all your media, themes, files, and of course the database.
Backup to External Storage: Your backup plugin should be able to back up your data to external resources such as Dropbox, G Drive, Amazon S3, OneDrive. Apart from your hosting, it’s better to keep your data saved on different storage. However, This feature is now included with almost all the modern backup plugins.
Our Top 10 List – Tried & Tested
So, we know why we need a backup plugin, and we know what are the essential features that we should look for. But there are a lot of plugins that match our criteria. So, we narrowed down the list for you by testing a lot of them, and here is the list of top 10 backup plugins from our test.
BlogVault
BlogVault is one of the most popular backup plugins on WordPress. It is a feature-rich plugin that not just works as a backup plugin but can also migrate your website to another host.
It does incremental backup, so only the changes you make to your website will update on the cloud storage, where your backup is. It takes off a significant amount of pressure from your server. It also backs up your data to an off-site BlogVault server. And with 90 days archive, so you can be assured that whatever happens to your website, you can always recover.
Apart from that, it also has a real-time data backup feature for WooCommerce stores with 365 days archive facility.
Annual charge for this plugin starts from $89 for a single website.
Pros
Super-fast backup and restore.
Simple and intuitive setup process.
Works for any web hosts.
Always backs up on scheduled time.
CONS
Price is higher than most of its competitors.
Doesn’t back up to popular cloud servers, rather backs up on its own servers.
Our Verdict
Though it is a bit pricier, it is surely one of the rare plugins that have almost all the features that you would expect from an ideal backup plugin.
UpdraftPlus offers one-click backup and restore with ease. It’s a reliable backup plugin that is loved by many.
It can back up directly into the cloud storage like Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 (or compatible), UpdraftVault, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, Openstack Swift, and email. The paid supports even some more. It offers advanced data encryption methods, yet a fast and smooth back up experience that works both by scheduling and manually. With this many features, no wonder it has over 2 million activate installations on WordPress.
UpDraftPlus is free to use. However, if you want to get access to features like incremental backups, more database option, there is also a premium version that starts from $70/year.
Pros
The free version works great.
Supports multiple cloud platforms for backing up data.
Both scheduled and on-demand backup facility.
CONS
The premium version doesn’t offer significant updates over their free version compared to the price.
Advanced configurations are somewhat confusing.
Our Verdict
We liked using UpDraft plus a lot. The features it has does justice to it’s 2 million-plus installation for sure.
VaultPress is from automattic, the mother company of WordPress. Apart from doing backup, it also has security scanning services.
It is powered by Jetpack and it’s able to back up every post, comment, media file, revision, and dashboard setting on your site. While the protection against any intruders or malware is a bonus you’re getting.
The starter pack starts at $3.50/month, which may seem cheap, but there’s a catch. The cheapest plan offers just 30 days archive, and if you want to update the plan, the price shots up at $20/month. Plus, it’s Jetpack dependency means you’ll also have to buy Jetpack to use it!
PROS
Developed by WordPress mother company Automattic, meaning you can rely on them with a sense of assurance.
The starting price is cheaper than most plugins.
Offers security features as well.
CONS
The starter plan offers only 30 days archive of your backup. Need to spend $600/year if you need real-time backup and unlimited archive.
Jetpack dependency.
Our Verdict
VaultPress is one of the most reliable backup plugins out there. Feature-wise it is fine, but for most of the people, the pricing may seem sky-high compared to its features.
BackupBuddy is a backup plugin from iThemes. It has an active installation of half a million according to its website.
It can back up your entire website to BackupBuddy Stash, Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox & more cloud storage. There’s a real-time backup, but it’s only available if you use BackupBuddy Stash to store your data. After every backup completion, you can download the whole website as a zip file, which is pretty cool!
Once you buy their premium plan, which is priced at $80/year for one website, you’ll get access to their support forum, 1GB BackupBuddy Stash storage, and some more premium features.
PROS
BackupBuddy is pretty straightforward to use.
Free 1GB BackupBuddy Stash storage.
Backup to offline storage.
CONS
Limited functionalities.
No free trial version.
Our Verdict
BackupBuddy is a kind of plugin that offers just what you need and not a thing more. We appreciate the simple plugin but would love to have some more features.
BackWPup is probably the most feature-packed free backup plugin. It has over 10 million downloads and an active installation of more than 6,00,00, making it one of the most popular backup plugin for WordPress.
It can backup your whole website to Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace, even when you use their free version. You can also set a recurring backup schedule.
Its premium version offers backup to Google Drive and Amazon Glacier. Also, the premium version allows you to encrypt your backup and restore the encrypted backups.
While the free version is up to the mark, its pro version offers even more exciting features, which starts at $69/ year.
PROS
Extensive features even on the free version.
Basic & Advanced features that will suit both beginner and pro users.
Multiple cloud storage support
The Premium version is reasonably priced compared to the features.
CONS
No on-demand backup option. Only scheduled backup is available.
OUR VERDICT
BackWPup is an excellent option for any kind of user. While its free version is not as good as UpdraftPlus, two plugins have almost similar feature-set.
Duplicator is mainly a website migration plugin that works pretty well as a backup plugin. It’s 1 million-plus active installation is mainly due to its efficiency for site migration. You can move, migrate, or clone a website to the same or another host with this plugin. And in the same way, back up a website or a certain part of it.
Duplicator Pro has decent features, such as scheduling your back up and storing your data to cloud storage. Unfortunately, those features are not available for the free version.
If you wish to use Duplicator, it’s better to use the pro version, not just because the free version lacks a lot of key features but also because of the excellent value for money the Duplicator Pro offers.
The pro version starts at $59/year for three sites, which is significantly lower than its competitors.
PROS
Excellent value for money.
Offers remote backup storage to Amazon S3, Google Drive & Dropbox.
30 days money-back guarantee.
CONS
Requires at least a primary level of technical knowledge to use.
No on-demand or scheduled backup option for the free version.
No restore backup option.
Our Verdict
Being mainly a site duplicator, as the name suggests, Duplicator also offers fairly good site backup features. We liked using it, but as it is a little less intuitive, your opinion about it may vary depending on your level of technical expertise.
What’s more satisfying than to be able to protect your website data? Obviously the way to do it for free! WP Database Backup is a hundred percent free plugin that can back up your database (yes only the database, not your files) to cloud storages like Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 or even to your FTP and Email,
With this free tool, you can do an on-demand backup anytime or schedule automatic back up for a repeating time. It also has an easy one-click restore option.
As we already told you this tool is completely free to use and has a more 60,000+ active installations with a 4.6 star review on WordPress plugin repository to prove that it gets the job done!
PROS
Completely free, not a single penny needed.
Easy to set up and use.
Supports scheduling and multiple storage options.
CONS
It only backs up the database, not the whole website. Meaning your media and files will not be protected.
Doesn’t support incremental backup, meaning your website will likely to act slow during the backup process.
OUR VERDICT
How much can you expect from a free plugin? Not much, right? Even if you are used to getting premium support, give this plugin a try. Because, in the end, how much can it cost at max? That’s right, nothing! Yet we think you will like the simplicity of this plugin.
WPvivid is yet another free backup plugin to protect your website. Albeit, this one has a premium version, the free version doesn’t lack many.
This free plugin can back up your entire website to Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon S3, DigitalOcean Spaces, SFTP, FTP. This all in one backup plugin can take care of your back, restore, and even site migration needs.
You can schedule an automatic backup or do a manual one anytime you like. The site migration works like a charm and takes just one click! You can also download all your data to your computer.
This plugin is free to use. The only notable feature that might attract you to opt for the pro version is the incremental backup option. The pro version starts from $99/year for 3 websites.
PROS
Free to use unless you want the incremental backup feature.
No limit of backup size.
Works with almost all common hosts.
CONS
The paid version is not a significant update over the free one.
The migration feature is still new and causes problems sometimes.
Our Verdict
If you are not willing to spend any money on your backup plugin, yet don’t want to compromise on data protection, this is the plugin is for you.
Backup Guard is a nifty plugin to deal with all your backup solutions. It has a 4.5-star rating on the WordPress repository and often praised for extraordinary after-sale customer support.
Backup Guard is a conventional backup plugin whose free version has left many things to be desired. The free version of the plugin can backup your whole website either on dropbox or on your computer. However, if you want to backup your data to more cloud storage like Google Drive, Amazon S3, OneDrive & SFTP/FTP you have to buy the pro version. You can easily restore the backup from both the free or pro version. The plugin also offers a site migration option, which requires the pro version.
The pro version starts at as low as $25 for lifetime usage with customer support and unlimited updates for 1 year.
PROS
Excellent value for money for the pro version.
Backup to all popular cloud storage.
CONS
No incremental backup feature, even for the pro version.
The free version doesn’t offer any storage option other than Dropbox.
OUR VERDICT
The plugin lacks advanced features but you can do the basic backup and restore very easily and without costing a fortune.
WP Time Capsule is a cool choice for a backup plugin for WordPress. It’s fast, lightweight, and easy to use. There is however no free version, if you want to use it after 30 days trial, you have to pay for it.
WP Time Capsules’ key features are incremental backup, lots of cloud storage support, and restore a backup from a specific date (perks of having a realtime incremental backup?).
This plugin has no free version, a bummer! The premium version, however, starts from $49/year for two sites.
PROS
Incremental backup support.
Restore backup from any specific date.
Reasonable price.
CONS
No free version, only a 30 days trial.
No on-demand backup feature.
Our Verdict
We found WP Time Capsule to be pretty good while using. If you have a tight budget but you also want to premium support, this can be your go-to plugin. But if you are looking for a free backup plugin, this is not the one, mate!
Now, lets see the how the plugins perform when put through the test using the new WordPress repository WP Hive.
Plugin
Memory Usage (On average)
Page Speed
Latest PHP Compatibility
Latest WordPress Compatibility
Frequently Updated
BlogVault
65.12 KB
+0.03s
Yes
Yes
No
Updraft Plus
363.81 KB
+0.01s
Yes
Yes
Yes
VaultPress
106.94 KB
+0.01s
Yes
Yes
No
BackupBuddy*
–
–
–
–
–
BackWPUp
263.8 KB
+0.07s
No
No
Yes
Duplicator
338.8 KB
+0.01s
Yes
Yes
Yes
WP Database Backup
89.62 KB
+0.03s
No
No
Yes
WPVivid
840.56 KB
+0.06s
Yes
Yes
Yes
BackupGuard
249.22 KB
+0.06s
Yes
Yes
Yes
WP Time Capsule
1067.07 KB
+0.05s
Yes
Yes
No
*Backup Buddy is not available on WordPress repository, therefore can’t be tested with WP Hive.
That was the performance test for WP Hive, not a single plugin has a negative effect on page speed, but some of them have are memory hungry, and some are not compatible with the update PHP and WordPress version.
If you want to check any plugin specifically for a more detailed performance test, click below.
It has been a long read, and now finally it’s time to let you know our favorites among these excellent plugins.
Best Free Offering: UpdraftPlus
We think UpdraftPlus offers both the basic and advanced features of their free version. It’s offering as a free plugin has exceeded our expectations.
Best Premium Offering: BlogVault
BlogVault has been one of the most instrumental plugins to back up a website. Whether you need it for personal use, or you’re from an agency looking for a multi-site deal, it offers something for everyone. It is by far the best backup plugin for WordPress from our point of view.
Wrapping things Up
Your data is precious, and you want to protect it. But choosing the right backup plugin is not easy. Especially when there is an ocean of backup plugins out there. We wanted to help out and make it easy for you to choose from the best. Losing your data is hard, losing control of your website is even harder. That is why we also have an extensive security guide for you to keep it safe from intruder and unwanted malware.
If you enjoyed the article and found it helpful, do appreciate with a comment. If you have a question, ask away!
– Hi, Can you give me the link to download “X” Theme? I can’t seem to find that online.
Every once in a while, I get calls like this. Since I am a WordPress developer and I design WordPress websites for my clients, I often get calls like this. Clients ask me to install a nulled/pirated WordPress theme.
A few years ago, I used to explain to my clients that using free WordPress themes is a better idea for their business, but they emphasized using nulled WordPress theme. They even gave me the nulled WordPress themes to start developing the website. I did not have any complaints. If the client does not care about his WordPress security, why should I? I am just a developer, right? WRONG!
Writing capability is certainly a divine gift. Allow users to submit posts/news to your WordPress site easily from your frontend. Discover a new world of thinking and make your site more engaging. Here is the step by step guide for you!
Want to get user-submitted posts on Your WordPress site? It’s a great opportunity to efficientlygenerate more traffics. Allow users to submit posts easily from your frontend. User-submitted posts are generally recognized as guest blogging.
Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers. –Brian Clark
In this article, we are going to show you how to allow guest bloggers to submit posts on your WordPress site within a few seconds!
WordPress with Cloudflare + SSL + CDN = Winning combination.
Cloudflare is an excellent free service that has been quietly making the web experience better for everyone. Each day Cloudflare is helping millions of website by blocking malicious attacks, DDoS attacks and more.
Why Use Cloudflare?
For instance, Cloudflare’s recent report shows that Cloudflare has blocked more than 350K DDoS attacks on average in each month of 2017.
Cloudflare accelerated the usage of SSL by providing its users with free SSL back in 2014. With Free SSL and Cloudflare CDN, you can speedup your website by a significant margin.
Since Chrome’s version 68, Google is flagging sites without HTTPS as not safe.
There’s no excuse to not use HTTPS and CDN. Cloudflare itself offers a lot of security features by mitigating DDoS attacks, preventing a data breach, providing intelligent firewall rules and more security features.
Webmasters and WordPress users are always looking for the best WordPress security plugins to be safe from security unwanted security issues. Security plays a very crucial role while maintaining your business’s success. If customers do not feel secure while visiting your website, they will not spend time, and your conversion rate will drop significantly.
Let’s accept the fact that WordPress hasn’t been famous for security. In fact, more than often WordPress is regarded as a vulnerable CMS. We previously covered a comprehensive WordPress Security Guide to be safe from security issues. However, reports suggest that a large number of websites get hacked each day running WordPress.
Sucuri’s 2018 Hacked Website Report states that 36.7% of WordPress websites were using out-of-date WordPress version at the time of the hacking.
The WPScan Vulnerability Database finds out that more than 70% of vulnerabilities happen due to out-of-date software. However, the good news is, the most vulnerable versions of WordPress released back in WordPress version 3.X.
Changing WordPress theme will not make you sweat but make sure you do it right!
You love WordPress’s awesome theme collection, right? We do too! The availability of thousands of themes helped to the growth of WordPress since its inception in 2003.
Switching WordPress themes with the WordPress theme switcher dead simple, but that doesn’t mean you will have to do it back and forth. If you are not careful before changing WordPress theme, all hail can break loose. In this article, we are discussing the necessary steps to be taken while changing WordPress themes.
Why Should You Change WordPress Theme?
Modern design changes with time. The perception of good design changes rapidly. That’s why you might need to change your theme. You can change a WordPress theme manually by uploading the theme’s zip file, or you can install from the WordPress repository of themes.
Users move to the open-source platform so that they can easily modify the visual appearance of their interfaces. You can change WordPress themes to radically change the whole outlook of the website.
Most of the WordPress themes have been categorized according to major industries and occupations. Specific WordPress themes have a specific layout targeted for specific industries. For example, food themes have food-related widgets, business themes have business-related icons & layouts, blogs have simple or colorful design focused on typography.
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