I had originally installed the BackUpWordPress plugin a while back because so many bloggers were singing it’s praises. So was I, it was easy and awesome.

You can have the back-ups emailed to you, set up automatic backups and everything. What blogger wouldn’t want to make tasks easier?

On Monday October 8th, my blog suddenly disappeared and was replaced with something along the lines of:

The blog you are trying to reach is currently unavailable, blah blah blah. If you are the owner of this blog, log in to your Bluehost account for more information.

Of course I immediately logged in and saw this:

Your web hosting account for mastertheartofsaving.com has been deactivated, as of 2012-10-08 12:04:05.

•   Reason: site causing performance problems.

For more information about this account, please call (888) 401-4678, option 2.

Creepy stuff.  So I called them ASAP because they were saying my blog was deactivated, that’s not cool.

The technical (which is option #2) guy sent me over to terms and conditions department. Did I violate something in there? Was it the few ads I have or what?

Nope, it was because of the BackUpWordPress plugin. Apparently even though I wanted my backup emailed to me, they were being stored on the server—over 100GBs. That’s a ton of stuff to store on there.

BlueHost wants you to use their free backup service instead or upgrade to a paid pro-version. Free sounds good to me, it’s pretty much the same thing except you have less options when restoring individual files yourself. So that means I’ll have to restore big chunks, the whole thing or call Bluehost and have them restore single files.

Not a problem for me and it saves around 13 bucks a year. Just don’t delete stuff and change your mind later on.

Bluehost was really nice and helpful and it only took me about 5 minutes on the phone to get my blog back online (thank goodness).

How to do free backups in BlueHost

Assuming you’re using BlueHost for your blog, since they’re awesome, it’s really easy to do free backups.

 #1 Log in to your Bluehost account

#2 Make sure you’re in your cPanel (it should be the selected tab up top)

#3 Click on Site Backup & Restore in the FILES section.

#4 Make sure that Backup is the selected tab up top

#5 To do an entire backup (which I recommend) click on Full cPanel Backup

#6 You can choose from daily, weekly or monthly. I chose daily because it was the most up-to-date option.

#7 Select the format for your backup from the little pop up. You can choose from TAR (.tar) or ZIP (.zip). I chose ZIP because I have no clue what TAR is. 😉

#8 Now the download box should pop up, click on Click here to download and it will start creating your backup and save it on your computer. I found mine in my downloads file.

It’s really easy to do, now you just have to wait for it to finish downloading (this takes the longest, especially if you have a ton of stuff on your blog).

Now I can just log in once a week or month and create a new backup and then delete the old one from my computer.

After getting this all sorted out, I realized they had also sent me an email about it. Here’s the email copied and pasted from Bluehost:

Dear Jen:

Your web hosting account for mastertheartofsaving.com has been deactivated, as of 10/08/2012. (reason: site causing performance problems)

This deactivation was due to a Terms of Service violation associated with your account. At sign-up, all users state that they have read through, understand, and agree to our terms. These terms are legal and binding.

Although your web site has been suspended, your data may still be available for up to 15 days from the date of deactivation; if you do not contact us during that 15 day period, your account and all of its files, databases, and emails may be deleted.

If you feel this deactivation was made in error, or in order to gain access to your account, please call our customer service line as soon as possible at (888) 401-4678 and speak with our Terms of Service Compliance department.
Please read the following, derived from our Terms of Service agreement, for additional information regarding the matter.

Engaging in any activity that, in Bluehost's sole and absolute discretion, disrupts, interferes with, or is harmful to (or threatens to disrupt, interfere with, or be harmful to) Bluehost's services, Bluehost's business, operations, reputation, goodwill, subscribers and/or subscriber relations, or the ability of Bluehost's subscribers to effectively use Bluehost's services is prohibited.

Please review the current copy of our Terms of Service here:
http://www.bluehost.com/cgi/terms

Thankfully, BlueHost customer service is awesome and everything was fixed in a jiffy. Just wanted to throw all you fellow bloggers out there a heads up.

Am I the only one who freaks the f*ck out when my blog disappears?