VaultPress – Set it and Forget it WordPress Backups

September 13, 2010 / in Information Technology, Social Media, WordPress / by Jason Terry

As companies continue to jump on the WordPress bandwagon to power their web sites and blogs, it is even more important to make sure that you are getting a good backup of your content. Consider this… your web site used to be fairly static. You could make a backup of your entire site at the end of the web site development project and have MOST of what you had done to create the site. If your web hosting crashed, you could get back up and running fairly quickly. Now that regular, homegrown content is king, you are investing time each week adding content to your web site or blog. We have been contributing to the Blue Gurus Blog for more than 72 weeks… a lot of effort to be sure. If you are using WordPress like millions of other people, are you sure your content is being backed up properly by your hosting company? Is it worth the risk to assume they are?

Enter VaultPress. VaultPress is made by Automattic, the same company that created and hosts all of the web sites and blogs at WordPress.com. Their WordPress backup service is currently in BETA but fully functional as a backup solution. VaultPress backs up your WordPress content in REAL TIME. In other words, whenever you add a new post, a new page, a new picture, whatever, it will get backed up in the next few minutes.

If you participate in the beta program, you lock in a reduced monthly rate ($15/month) for the life of your account. Retail pricing for VaultPress is currently set at $20/month. Still not breaking the bank, but if you need the solution, jump in now and save your selve a few lunches over the course of a year.

If you aren’t technical or just don’t want to mess with it, we would be happy to help you set up VaultPress.

If you know what you are doing, the process for setting up VaultPress is fairly straight-forward:
1) Go to VaultPress.com and sign up for an account.
2) Since they are in Beta, you have to wait for your “Golden Ticket” email that allows you access to the Beta. We received ours in less than 1 week.
3) Once you gain access, click the link in your welcome email.
4) Sign up for your account and provide credit card information. Choose the $15/month plan.
5) Once your Credit Card has been authorized, you will need to associate your account with a WordPress.com account (they are free, and you probably already have one so that your stats or Akismet plugins work)
6)When you have associated your VaultPress account with your WordPress.com account, VaultPress creates a custom WordPress Plugin with your pertinent information in it that you can download to your computer.
7) Download this plugin to a location that you will remember on your local machine.
8) Log in to your WordPress web site or blog.
9) Click on the Plugins Tab.
10) Choose Add New and select Browse so that you can upload the plugin you previously downloaded to your computer.
11) Upload and Activate the plugin.
12) Once your VaultPress plugin is active, a new menu item will appear in your WordPress left navigation menu called VaultPress. Click this menu button and watch as your site gets backed up! From here on out, it will perform backups in REAL TIME as you add content to your web site or blog.