BACKUP NEWBIE – extreme newbie

  • ellywin

    (@ellywin)


    8 years ago

    I am hugely untechnical. But I would like to improve and get better. I have a website https://www.windleinternational.org which I am in the process of making with the zerif lite theme.

    I am hosted by SiteGround. I wanted to understand about backing up. I think SiteGround automatically backs me up which is great. However, I would like to learn how to backup just so I get a better understanding of how these things work.

    Things I don’t know include FTP what it is SQL, CSS, php, a whole host of other words that might as well be Martian for my comprehension of them. I don’t know where my website is. If I was asked to find the files to back it up – I wouldn’t know where to look. It is that basic!

    I don’t know anything.

    I can follow instructions but most of the instructions on backing up websites seem to assume that you know where the files are. And I don’t. So hopefully having given a clear view of how hugely backward I am in this knowledge, can anyone help me understand how to backup my website? I would appreciate it enormously.

Viewing 5 replies - 16 through 20 (of 20 total)
  • lisa

    (@contentiskey)

    Yes, the first few times you use FTP to manage files it seems confusing.
    Automated backup will be a better plan to avoid the steps needed for manual backup

    What changes are you planning?
    Perhaps you can use a simple CSS editor plugin instead of child theme.
    Do you plan to change the theme templates or change only some design things?

    Manual Backup includes
    -DATABASE find in cpanel PHPmyAdmin–ask SiteGround to help you find this area in CPanel
    -Various FILES that are part of your webiste (can use FTP)

    Ivan Yordanov

    (@ivanyordanov-1)

    SiteGround Representative

    Hello @ellywin

    I am part of the senior technical support team at SiteGround, so I’d like to answer some of your questions:

    – We have backups. If you are using some of our shared plans (StartUp, GrowBig, GoGeek) you have 30 backup copies (for 30 days back). Again, depending on your plan, you might be able to restore files/database/emails manually from the Backup Restore cPanel tool. Alternatively, you can always open a ticket and request that from our support team.

    – Your main site is located in the public_html/ directory. The location of the addon domains and the subdomains you add from your cPanel can be defined by you at the time you are adding them. You can check their document root from cPanel -> Addon domains and cPanel – Subdomains.

    – Manual backups – we have a lot of useful tutorials that you can check, here is the one related to backup creation:

    https://www.siteground.com/tutorials/wordpress/wordpress_backup.htm

    You can also use some of the backup plugins in the WordPress plugins diractory.

    Ps. You can find more useful tutorials that will help you to manage your WordPress application here:

    https://www.siteground.com/tutorials/wordpress/

    Thread Starter ellywin

    (@ellywin)

    Dear Ivan

    Thank you very much for your help. I am on the startup programme I think – so have the 30 backups.

    Please do pass on my thanks to your team, as they were very helpful when I called.

    It is hard to understand these things as a complete novice and not coming from a technical background.

    I do think I managed to download a backup to my desktop. I may try the softaculous way in a week or so to see if I can also do it that way. I thoroughly failed in my attempt to install a child theme (it would simply come up at the bottom with a note saying not installed no css.style file) but that was mainly because the youtube videos seemed to be in a very different screen to where I was.

    Therefore I think I may take confusediskey idea to install a CSS plugin (I say that like I understand it!!) and see how that goes.

    Many thanks again to you and the team

    Elly

    Thread Starter ellywin

    (@ellywin)

    Hi content is key …. only planning a couple of changes if possible: changing background colour to beigy rather than white and I would like my footer menu to run horizontally rather than vertically (at the moment I have it on the side because it spoils the design being vertical and on the footer but as soon as i can work out how to make it go horizontal I will put it back to the footer).

    lisa

    (@contentiskey)

    it’s so nice that @ivanyordanov-1 provided feedback on backups in SiteGround.

    if you are planning to make changes to CSS (i.e. colors, fonts, margins, padding, borders) and NOT theme templates try a CSS editor.

    one plugin you could use is JETPACK which includes a CSS editor.
    https://jetpack.com/
    https://jetpack.com/support/custom-css/

    my opinion-changing footer menu from vertical to horizontal can be done with CSS but might take several steps. try a few simple changes to get a feel for how to work with CSS.

    suggestion: start a new support thread if you have questions specifically about CSS changes.

Viewing 5 replies - 16 through 20 (of 20 total)
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