But Doesn't Wealthy Affiliate Back up My Site?

Yes it does and this should always be your first port of call.

WA backs up all the sites they host on their own servers and they keep the backup files for a number of days.

But there are a couple of issues with relying on this alone.

1. Timing

Wealthy Affiliate will backup your websites once a day, typically in the evening when traffic is lighter. But what if you've just spent 4 hours creating and publishing your best post ever. It may be a full day away from being backed up by your web host. But you can back it up right now.

2. A Dispute

It won't happen with the helpful, personal approach taken by Wealthy Affiliate, but some web hosts have been known to cut off access to your site if you are in dispute with them, irrespective of who's in the right. Having your own backup gives you the upper hand, as you can always use it to transfer your website to another web host. That can be more difficult if your web host is also your domain name registrar. That's why I like to keep them separate.

3. Another Question of Timing

What if you've let your payment to your web host lapse and have simply forgotten about this particular website? It's not a dispute, but your website is simply gone and there is no way of getting it back,

4. Your Website's Been Hacked

Any website can be hacked, typically through a weakness in a plugin. The hack can prevent you from accessing it and it can, for example, redirect visitors to another site or to a number of other sites by rotation. Your chances of getting help from any of those sites are slim to none.

Your only hope is to restore from backup.

You may be able to do this from your web host's backup - but not if the hack got into your site before the oldest backup. And if it's a Trojan, that will almost certainly be the case.

But if you've got your own backup, you're set.