Perplexing and Bursty Guide to Recovering Your WordPress Website

WordPress is the go-to content management system for building eye-catching websites, engaging blogs, and vibrant user communities. Despite its ease-of-use, multitude of plugins, and open-source nature, it can still be vulnerable to hacking attempts, technical glitches, and unexpected crashes.

Identifying the Root Cause of the Problem

Before embarking on the journey to recover your WordPress website, it’s crucial to identify the root cause of the issue. Possible culprits include:

• Theme or plugin conflicts
• The white screen of death
• DNS and server issues
• Malware and hacking
• Deleting critical files or content

Backing Up Your Website

As a rule of thumb, it’s vital to back up your site regularly to facilitate easy restoration in case of any emergencies. Multiple WordPress backup plugins on the market allow you to create copies of your entire website, images, files, and plugins. One common backup utility is UpdraftPlus, which can save your backups remotely to cloud storage platforms like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Amazon S3.

Accessing Website Files

After identifying the issue and creating a backup, you can access your WordPress website files using FTP or file managers such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, or Plesk. FTP is popular among website developers since it enables file transfers between a local computer and a WordPress site.

Disabling Plugins and Themes

If the primary cause of the WordPress disease is a problematic plugin or theme, it’s advisable to disable all installed themes and plugins to start diagnostics. You can do this via your WordPress dashboard or by renaming plugin/theme folders in the website’s file manager. Once done, check if the website is functional again.

Updating WordPress Core, Themes, and Plugins

Maintaining up-to-date WordPress core, themes, and plugins is recommended since outdated plugins can damage your website. Updating them adds new features, patches security holes, and fixes bugs. To update your WordPress core, themes, and plugins, log in to your WordPress dashboard, and click on any updates notifications you get.

Scanning Website for Malware

Before restoring your website, scan it for malware to prevent re-infection after restoration. Wordfence, iThemes Security, and Sucuri are examples of reliable malware scanner plugins you can use. Remove any malicious code manually or employ the scanner’s automated process.

Reinstalling WordPress

If all else fails, reinstall WordPress. This is a last resort since it’s time-consuming to transfer files and content to a new installation. Before reinstalling, back up your entire website-data, images, content, and databases. Uninstall WordPress from your hosting control panel or use an automated installer like Softaculous to install the latest version.

In Conclusion

Always utilize best security practices such as strong passwords, SSL certificates, and two-factor authentication to prevent attacks. In case of unexpected website crashes or hacks, this guide offers practical steps to facilitate successful WordPress Recovery.