News from Wildwood Interactive

Makin' Copies!
Why you need to back up your data

4 Site Owners � 4 Great Reasons to make copies of your site at periodic intervals.

Site Owner 1 lost her entire site, including a wonderful online journal of her once-in-a-lifetime journey when she accidently let her domain name expire.
Site Owner 2 lost her myspace site � myspace shut it down. Eventually they turned it back on, but what if they hadn�t? Poems, friend links, blog entries, pictures...all gone.
Site Owner 3�s ISP went out of business. Woke up one morning, his site was gone, and his email address didn�t work.
Site Owner 4 found HER content on someone else�s site! She�s VERY organized � she had copies of her content at different times, so she was able to prove to the site owner that the content belonged to her. The site owner had purchased writing services from a third party, was horrified to see that the writer had stolen material and then sold it to her, and promptly removed the material. What if Site Owner 4 hadn't had proof?

One of the beauties of a website is that it�s not �final.� It�s not like a brochure or a business card, where you have thousands printed, and then to your horror, you discover that there�s an extra �w� in www.yoursite.com, or when you copied your source business card file to use for your new employee, you forgot to change the email address to theirs! Instead, a website is fluid. You can change it, or have it changed, all the time. It�s dynamic. But the downside of all this fluidity is that it's hard to remember to keep "snapshots in time."

The content is also much more available to anyone else who wants it. A quick copy/paste, and it�s theirs. It almost doesn�t feel like stealing!

Our advice this month is to keep a copy of your website, or have your web development firm keep a copy of your website.

When you make a revision, keep the old information
Keep your graphics
Keep copies of your downloadable files
Keep copies of the backup code

If you have a web development firm working for you, it's worth it to pay them to burn you a CD at points in time during the year, especially before and after major revisions. Make sure it includes any database data, if your developer or you have access to this.

Then, if your ISP goes out of business, your web developer flees to Alaska, someone copies your content and you need to prove it was yours first, or you lose your site for some other reason, you have what you need to get back to where you were or to take action if necessary.