How to restore deleted website content
Hi, I'm Laura from Digital Marketing B&T Ltd. I'm the author of this blog, nice to meet you!
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You can salvage deleted website content by searching in Google's cached images. We had to do this when our content was removed from our control by rogue web hosting company 24/7 Hosting. Here's what to do if it happens to you.
This week our website was deleted when our web hoster 24/7 Hosting went AWOL and took our site with it - leaving no forwarding address.
This is incredibly frustrating as we should have known better!
So now we have to rebuild our website from scratch but there are good lessons to learn from our loss which we will share with you here.
Take time to research your choice of web hosters
Always choose an authorised domain name registrar
We are speedily rebuilding our site now we have moved to new hoster Godzone Internet Services, one of several registrars authorised by New Zealand's Domain Name Commission.
Store your website files and database safely elsewhere
Many other small companies were also duped by 24/7 Hosting. If you were one, hopefully you were wise and had your website files and database stored safely elsewhere.
In this case you can move your site to a new web hoster and easily set it up as new.
Literally the wild west out there
How to retrieve your old website content
If you are unlucky and like us have lost your website content, you may still be able to save some of it by doing the following as quickly as possible:
- search on Google for your deleted pages
- look for a green upside-down triangle to the right of the green text under each listing
- click on the green triangle and select 'cached' (you may need to right click on your mouse)
- copy & paste all the information into a word document
NB: You need to do this quickly as these cached images are only temporary photos which Google takes of your website and could be deleted at any time. You can then give your saved content to whomever rebuilds your webpage.
Lessons learned?
Choose your web hoster VERY carefully as it is literally the Wild West out there with some unscrupulous, unpoliced, unregulated web hosters operating, although the vast majority do their job well.
If you would like to see the Wild West changed to make it safer for everyone, or if you would like advice managing online risk, please get in touch.