EarthLink Web Hosting is easy to use. And as we’ve written about before, our free EasySiteWizard Pro tool is a fast and simple way to build a website, even if you have absolutely no technical experience and know nothing about building a website.

But, as with any web hosting service, it is also possible to make mistakes when you’re working on your website.

Sometimes the mistakes are serious: you accidentally deleted important files or pages, or you inadvertently wrote over some content you needed to save. (This is especially likely if you are working on your website manually and uploading files via FTP rather than using the EasySiteWizard Pro tool.)

That’s why we strongly recommend that you alwayshave a local backup (i.e., on your computer) of your site and all its content.

Here are the backup strategies we recommend to help you safeguard your essential website files.

1. Use your favorite FTP client to download a complete backup of all your website’s content. The File Manager Pro tool (in the Manage Site section of your Web Hosting Control Center) can be used to download individual files to y our computer, but not whole directories or multiple files.
2. Keep your website backup stored locally on your work or home computer, or at an off-site storage location.
3. Create a backup schedule and keep backing up your website regularly according to your schedule (how often you should backup varies depending on how often you make changes to your website). Rapidly changing data should be backed up more frequently.

If you’ve kept up on your local website backups and you make a mistake, the fix is as simple as FTPing the files you need from your computer back to your website.

Using the File Restore Tool

If you don’t have a backup, all may not be lost. Your EarthLink Web Hosting Control Center has an easy-to-use File Restore tool that can help you restore your website content from pre-defined time periods (6 hours ago, 24 hours ago, 48 hours ago, etc.).

Please note: it is not possible to ensure that all your files will be recoverable. And you should also be aware that, if you are using File Restore to restore your website, it will overwrite existing files if they have the same filenames as the restored content.

Here’s how to use File Restore:

1. Sign into your Web Hosting Control Center at with your EarthLink Web Hosting domain name, username, and password.
2. On the Manage Site tab, click the File Restore button.
3. At the bottom of the page, use the drop-down menu to select a time-based backup of your site that you think will have the file you wish to restore (your most recent choice may be from a few minutes to 6 hours ago).
4. Click the Next button.
5. From the list on the left, select the file that you want to restore and click on the gray dot (the dot will turn green when the file is selected). You can repeat this process for other files you wish to restore.
6. Click the Restore button.
7. You’ll see a message letting you know that you are restoring a file and warning you about overwriting other files. Click the Next button to continue restoring your files.
8. You’ll see a final confirmation (big green checkmark) that your file restore is complete and a list of files restored. At this point, you can click a link to view your File Restore history or to go back and restore additional files.

We hope you never need it, but it’s good to know File Restore is there to back you up.

Now, what are you waiting for? Get started backing up your website.