Recently, I undertook the task of transferring two WordPress sites hosted on Bluehost to Cloudways. However, I faced an issue where I couldn't receive backups because Bluehost's hosting plan had expired. When a hosting plan expires, access to the site is blocked and data becomes inaccessible, although some hosting providers retain data for a certain period.
This article will explore what to do if your Bluehost hosting has expired and you haven't secured a backup.
Backup Issues When Bluehost Hosting Expires
Bluehost is an affordable shared hosting service based overseas, yet it offers only U.S. servers, resulting in slower speeds for users in South Korea and leading to considerable dissatisfaction. Alternatives such as FastComet and ChemiCloud offer similar levels of hosting. FastComet provides servers in Tokyo, while ChemiCloud supports servers in Seoul, ensuring faster speeds for South Korean users.
Since last year, Cloudways has gained popularity in South Korea, particularly for users with high traffic or those managing several sites.
If your hosting service expires, your site will be immediately inaccessible, and you won’t be able to back up your data. Some hosting services, however, retain data for a limited time even after expiration. For instance, Cafe24, a popular web hosting service in Korea, holds data for 15 days.
In the case of Bluehost, a quick search indicates that data is deleted immediately upon expiration.
Backups may be permanently deleted if payment fails on your account and the account is expired. It is the sole responsibility of the customer to make and keep copies of their data, and Bluehost will not attempt to keep data (including backups) of accounts that have been expired or deleted.
When accessing the Bluehost site, I encountered a message stating Account Suspended.
Upon logging into my Bluehost account, I found that the hosting service for my site (WordPress Plus Hosting) had lapsed.
Clicking the Manage button prompted a warning stating "Your WordPress Plus Hosting is suspended" and advised contacting customer support for restoration.
While Bluehost states that data will be deleted upon expiration, it appears they actually retain data for a certain period (the duration isn’t specified).
When I contacted customer support to ask if I could receive a backup, they informed me that was not possible. The only solution provided was to renew the hosting. When I inquired about renewing for just one month, they confirmed that was an option.
After extending the hosting for one month, I was able to access the site again within about ten minutes, and backups became possible.
It's crucial to secure a full backup (including data and database) before your hosting expires. After expiration and a certain period, the data can be completely wiped from the hosting server, making it impossible to recover. Although rare, some individuals realize their hosting has expired months later and attempt to contact the provider for recovery. Unfortunately, the chances of data restoration after several months are virtually non-existent.
If your hosting expires without a backup, promptly reach out to your hosting provider to...
- Ask if they can provide a backup, and
- If they say it’s not possible, inquire whether extending the hosting for one month allows you to retrieve the backup.
When you do manage to back up, make sure to include both data (WordPress-related files) and the database (database). There are instances where people back up only the data and then find themselves unable to restore because they neglected the database. Failing to back up the database means you cannot recover site settings, theme configurations, plugin setups, pages, or posts.
Additionally, if you're switching the PHP version on Cafe24 (for example, from PHP 7.x to PHP 8.2) or changing from the 10G product to managed WordPress hosting, make sure to back up both data and database. When applying for a change, a warning that "all data, database, email, etc., from the existing account will be deleted and cannot be recovered" appears—do not ignore this warning. Verify that you have backed up correctly before proceeding with the change to ensure your safety.
If you change your settings without backing up and ignore the warning, you risk facing disaster. 😥
If you're experiencing difficulties related to WordPress or web hosting issues, you can request services (for a fee) here.