Website Backup Checklist in the Redesign Phase

A website redesign is exciting until something goes wrong. And things will go wrong if nobody takes the time to back everything up properly beforehand. Blog posts vanish, form submissions disappear, old files get lost in the shuffle. But it’s almost never the developer’s fault. It happens because no one made a proper list of what needed saving before work kicked off.

Back Up Your Database First

The database is where most of your site’s content actually lives. Pages, posts, user accounts, product listings, metadata, comments and custom fields are all stored there. On WordPress, that’s a MySQL database. Other platforms will use different formats, but the idea is the same.

Get your developer to export a full database dump in .sql format before they change anything. A raw, importable copy means you can restore things quickly if the rebuild goes sideways. Don’t accept a partial export or some plugin-only backup that misses half your data.

If you’re running an ecommerce store, make sure transaction records, customer info and order histories are part of that export too. You may need them for accounting, returns or GDPR compliance. The ICO’s guide to the data protection principles sets out the storage limitation principle, so make sure you know how long you’re required to keep certain records and that those records are included in your backup.

Don’t Forget Your Media Library

Images, PDFs, videos and downloadable files build up over years and they’re easy to overlook because they sit in a separate folder from your main content.

Download the entire /wp-content/uploads/ directory (or your CMS equivalent) via FTP or your hosting panel. Compare folder sizes before and after to confirm nothing was skipped.

Keep a record of the original file names and locations too. If the new site restructures URLs or media paths, you’ll need that information when setting up redirects or re-linking images later.

Export Form Submissions and Lead Data

Contact form entries, quote requests, newsletter signups and survey responses often live inside a plugin’s own database table. Depending on how your forms are set up, they won’t always appear in a standard database export.

Open your form plugin (Gravity Forms, WPForms, or whatever you’re using) and export all submissions as .csv files. Label each one clearly by form name and date range.

This data has real business value. Losing months of lead enquiries because nobody backed up a plugin table is a painful mistake, and one that’s completely avoidable.

Save Your Analytics and Tracking Setup

Your Google Analytics property won’t disappear during a redesign, but your goals, events, filters and custom dimensions can easily get disrupted when the new site changes URL structures or page templates.

Before the old site goes offline, screenshot or export your Google Analytics configuration. Note down custom events, conversion goals and audience segments. If you’re using Google Tag Manager, export the container as a JSON file so your developer can replicate the setup on the new build.

Record your baseline metrics too. Traffic, bounce rate, top pages, conversion rates. You’ll want those as a benchmark once the new site is live.

Store Everything Off-Site

Once you’ve gathered all your backups, don’t leave them on the same server that’s about to be wiped. You can easily find free cloud storage with end-to-end encryption as a secure off-site copy. Both you and your developer can then access files during the project without emailing large attachments around.

Set up a shared folder with clear labels: database exports, media files, form data, analytics config and redirect maps.

Create a Redirect Map

This isn’t a backup in the traditional sense, but it’s just as critical. If URLs change during the redesign (and they almost certainly will), you’ll need 301 redirects pointing old addresses to new ones.

Crawl your existing site with a tool like Screaming Frog and export the full URL list. Match each old URL to its new equivalent so your developer can implement redirects before launch. That’ll protect your search rankings and stop visitors from landing on dead pages.

Verify Before the Old Site Goes Dark

Don’t assume everything was captured just because someone clicked “export.” Open the database dump and check it contains the right tables. Spot-check a few images from the media library. Open each CSV and confirm the entries look complete.

Do all of this while the old site is still live. Once it’s gone, there’s no going back.