How to Restore a Website Without WordPress Access

You wake up one morning, excited about the new designs you’ve seen for websites and decide to build your own. After all, you can always find an online builder to do the job (for a price), but why not take the challenge yourself? What could possibly go wrong?

You start by trying to log in to WordPress.com and discover that the login page isn’t available. To access your WordPress.com dashboard, you’ll need to contact customer service and ask them to reset your password. Once you have that done, you can continue to build your website.

If this ever happens to you, don’t panic. There are several ways to restore your website without needing to know how to code or have previous WordPress experience. Keep reading for tips on how to do it.

Create A Back-Up

One of the first things you’ll need to do before starting any project is create a back-up copy of your website. This is especially important if you’re going to be making significant changes to the layout or content of your site. If you’re not sure where to start, check out our guide on the best cloud service for backing up your website.

The importance of a back-up cannot be stressed enough. Unfortunately, we all know what can happen once the ‘creative’ juices start flowing. Having a back-up is not only vital in case you make significant changes and want to go back, but it’s also a good idea to make some changes and see how the site looks without having to go through the entire process of creating a new one.

Use A VPS

In case you did decide to take the challenge of creating your own website, you might want to consider using a VPS. A VPS allows you to get access to the resources of a physical server. This gives you the ability to run multiple websites (called websites or blogs, depending on the plan you choose) from one device. The nice thing about a VPS is that it gives you access to a physical server, meaning you have the ability to install and run any software you want. This includes some amazing blogging tools that can help you create and manage multiple websites from one place. You can try out the Linode VPS for free for 30 days before having to make a decision.

Use Git

If you’ve ever used version control software such as Git or SVN, you’ll have the ability to deal with file revisions fairly easily. This is important if you’re going to be making frequent changes to your website’s content or design. To keep track of all the changes you make, you can use Git or SVN to keep a copy of your website. This way, you can always go back in time and see what you’ve done (assuming you haven’t deleted the original files).

If you decide to go down this path, make sure to set aside enough space on your hard drive to host all your websites. You don’t want to run out of disk space because you’ve accumulated too many website files. You can always purchase a secondary drive to add to your existing setup.

Create A Plan B

To create a Plan B, you’re going to have to find a new web host. This will be the place where all your websites live after you restore them from Plan A. The nice thing about a Plan B is that you have an existing site to work with so all you need to do is login and set up your new account. From there, you can start adding content to your sites. This way, if anything does happen to Plan A, you can still maintain your presence on the web.

Use A Free DNS Service

There are several free DNS services out there that allow you to custom-name your domain(s). For example, if you want to name your domains “example.com” and “example.net”, you can use Free DNS Service to accomplish this. You’ll need to have an existing domain to use this service, though (e.g., melaniebrick.com).

You can use this service to point your existing domain name to the IP address of your VPS. If you’re looking for a free domain name and hosting, this is the option for you. Be sure to keep in mind that once you set up your primary domain with this service, you’ll have to transfer it to your VPS in order to use it for your other sites (this is a one-time process).

Restore From Scratch

Even though you’ll most likely use a VPS to host your websites, you don’t necessarily need to start from scratch. In case you decided to go this route, simply log in to your VPS’ dashboard and reinstall WordPress. This will give you a clean slate on which to build your site. Remember: it’s always a good idea to have a back-up of your site before starting any project, so you don’t have to spend as much time fixing things up if something goes wrong.

When you’re making changes to your site’s content or design, it’s essential to take a break every now and then so you don’t make mistakes. Also, try to avoid installing too many new plugins or themes at once. These can cause major conflicts if not handled correctly.

To give you an idea of how much time this process can take, we’ve compiled a list of things you might need to consider before starting any site-building project:

• Creating a back-up of your site
• Choosing a web host
• Installing WordPress
• Setting up your primary domain
• Customizing your site
• Configuring your VPS for maximum performance
• Adding content to your site
• Optimizing images
• Using HTML validating software

All in all, building a new website from scratch takes a lot of time. Don’t expect to complete it in a day or two. It could take a few days to a few weeks to get everything done. Good luck!