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Choosing a Web Hosting Provider

Are Backups Performed?

SUMMARY: Ensure your website data is archived in case of an emergency.

One consideration when choosing a web hosting provider is if they perform backups on your data. Also, determine whether or not the backups are easily accessible (perhaps just via a shell command) and if there is a cost for making or accessing backups. This is important for many reasons, including:

* Dynamic information, such as forum messages, guestbook entries, or registration information could be lost forever without backups! As this information may only normally be stored on the website computer and not transferred automatically to your PC, if the information is deleted without a backup, it can be gone forever.

* If you accidentally delete files on your website, such as by typing a shell prompt command incorrectly, it can be much quicker to obtain files from online backups than to re-upload the information from your PC.