There is nothing worse than the feeling you get a split second after you have pressed a key and realized that half of your web site or database is on its way to the digital dumpster. It's a bit like what the bungy jumper felt when he launched himself off the bridge and realised that the other end of the cord was not secured. Both of you need a backup plan.

Most of the time a good web site hosting company can help. For example did you know that all our servers are backed up every night, usually between midnight and 2 AM? All it takes is a call to support or a quick trip to our helpdesk to request a backup of the file or files and we can usually have you back on the air in minutes. Even if you didn't notice a missing file for several days we can often help there too. Daily backups are regularly transfered to tape and several tapes are ususally available. We can give you a list of which days are available on tape. Select the tape and we can restore the file. Unfortunately restoring the tape does require human intervention at the datacenter and special charges will apply. And there is no guarantee that we will have a specific day's data available since there is a rotating schedule. Of course if the file has been missing for a while there may not be any copy available on tape at all.

Another option is to check with the web site designer. When we design a web site we normally keep an "as delivered" copy of all sites we have designed on our local servers. Most good designers should do this too. Often, if we know extensive changes have been made after delivery, we will archive the current version too.

But don't forget that it is your web site and ultimately you are responsible for maintaining it's integrity. Especially if you are maintaining the content on a site. Don't suffer from "Backup Anxiety". Take a little time to investigate your options and you are bound to have better solutions available than our unfortunate bungy jumper.