Why You Should Heat This Advice:

It’s Christmas Eve. Rather than helping my wife with wrapping up the last bunch of Christmas gifts, I am sitting in front of my laptop, aggravated, frustrated and pulling my hair out …

You see, early this morning (5:30 AM CST to be exact), this blog got attacked by an unknown intruder wiping out the database that contained all my previous posts.

Needless to say my emotions went from panic to upset to boiling mad in a matter of minutes. The problem got augmented by the fact that I did not have a backup of my database and … when I contacted my hosting company, they politely informed me that they didn’t have a backup of my site either.

OK! I made a giant mistake. I should know better, I should have done better. But my hosting company not backing data that we so trustworthy store on their servers … that just blows my mind.

And wouldn’t you know it, they of course have a very good reason why my site wasn’t being backed up. Per my hosting company, my site exceeded the maximum numbers of “inodes” to still be included in their standard backup.

Say what? First, what the heck are Inodes? and … secondly, since when is there a limit on a site being included for a backup?

As it turns out, Inodes is one of those fancy internet terminologies that simply means “folders” or directories and sub-directories.

And yes, my hosting company actually has a clause (I guess pun intended) in their members contract that stipulates that once a domain exceed a specific number of folders, they reserve the right to exclude that domain from their backup routine.

Of course, that “claus” is never brought to your attention when you sign up for their hosting service. If they did, they would most likely not enjoy the massive monthly member count they have now.

Who in his right mind would sign up with a hosting company that does not backup your precious information?

What does all this mean?

Well … it comes down to four specific things:

1. Know your hosting company’s rules and regulations.
My hosting company is rated top notch on the internet and is considered by many to be one of two online hosting services to use. Yet I am proof that just having a good rating isn’t good enough a reason to base your decision on to trust them with your business. Read their rules, learn them, know them. If you can’t find their rules, ask for them before you commit your business to them.

2. Find out your hosting company’s restrictions.
When, after familiarizing yourself with their rules and regulations, you still have unanswered questions, send and email and ask for an explanation. If you aren’t getting answers or the answers are slow to arrive, you’re better served looking for another hosting company, one that is not hesitant in giving you their restrictions up front, before you become a member.

3. Don’t rely solely on your hosting company.
Even after you learn everything you want to know about your hosting company and you are fully satisfied with the answers and the solutions they offer, don’t put all your trust solely in them and expect that your data will be safe and accessible at all times. Hosting companies rely heavily on technology. Technology can and will fail at times … just be aware of that.

4. Put your business in your own hands.
Don’t make the mistake I made not backing up my data (I relied on my hosting company to do that for me … ). Rather, take a pro-active approach. It’s better (and easier) to cure than to heal. Backup all your pertinent information yourself at regular intervals. Store that information in a safe and secure place. Heavens forbid, should disaster strike, you won’t slam your head into your laptop and kick the cat across the room because you were so stupid to trust someone else with your business.

As for me, I didn’t kick my cat, but I did call myself every dirty word in the book for not having more foresight and backup my priceless information EVERY DAY!!

As for this site, I am stuck having to rebuild (i.e. rewrite) from scratch every post I can remember or …

I can simply forget all the hard work I spent the past year with adding post upon post to this blog and start writing brand new posts. Then, I will have to be patient and silently grind my teeth as I eagerly await my rating and my SE rankings to improve to where they were before lightning struck.

So … while my wife is wrapping a few more gifts, and while you get into the “Happy Holidays” groove by sipping lecherous eggnog, I on the other hand, will have to content with spending oodles of time writing posts and submitting articles while kicking myself in silent despair.