Hi im new to blogging and hope this is not a ridiculous question.  after placing wordpress into godaddy hosting, and we gernate info on the blog – such as other individuals postings etc, is their a way to back up all the info from the blog besides the copy and past strategy?

@tristen I am assuming since you mentioned Go Daddy that you are using Wordpress.org rather than Wordpress.com.

If that is the case, you should definitely back-up all your data on your Wordpress site.  I use a neat plug-in called WordPress Database Backup.

Once you have installed the plug-in, you can configure it to do a complete back-up of your site whether it be by day, week or month.  Then you enter your email address.  The plug-in automatically back-ups the entire site into a compressed file and sends it as an attachment to the email they send you.

If anything happens to your site, you have a complete back-up ready to retrieve.

A warning about the plugin that @dcoville001 mentioned…I haven’t checked out the plugin, but make sure it’s backing up more than just the database. The name suggests it’s only a database plugin and will only save your posts. If that’s the case, it will not save any of your core WP files, theme files, or images you’ve uploaded to WP. But, I haven’t looked at that plugin, so I couldn’t say. Make sure you use a plugin solution that saves a complete backup, including all the core and theme files. I wrote an article about the whole works here: http://www.kellyagarrett.com/2012/the-right-way-to-back-up-your-wordpress-site/

I’ve been meaning to back up my wordpress.org site for a while now. Thanks for the reminder. Back up complete. 

@camwilkes: Yes.
@tristen: Assuming you’re talking about a self-hosted version of WordPress, I use BackupPress; it’s cheap and does the job (backs up both the database and the theme files automatically on a daily basis).

- Lukas

BackupBuddy is a paid plugin and works extremely well and easy.

You can take post and pages backup by exporting wordpress.

And then there is the old fashion way of copying all files and database to your hard drive.

Better WP security is the plugin I tend to use. This plugin will change some of the backend features of your installation to make it harder for people to hack into. It will also take automatic backups of your website at an interval you set. I.E mine backs up automatically every week. The backup is also emailed to you in a .zip folder which is handy. 

Do be aware that this will only backup your database, not your files. If you need your files updated, I would suggest one of the plugins mentioned above  - Sam

@camwilkes Actually, I don’t think so.  That will grab all your core files, themes, images, etc.  But it will not actually backup your databases (post content). That’s what the backup widgets are for. 

The issue is not backing up your site, that is a given. This issue is how you restore your site after a disaster. A lot of backup plugins do just that, but give you no easy way to restore your site.  I live by BackupBuddy. You can get your site back up in a matter of minutes and it really is non-techie in its approach. Watch a two minute video and you can restore your site with ease.