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Restore your Website without a Backup

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Obviously the best way to restore a site is to have a recent working backup. But sometimes, for whatever reason, you don't have one, or the backup file you have does not contain what you are trying to recover. There still may be a way to get at least some of your content back... if you are lucky.

Here are some methods of recovering old content without a backup. None of them are foolproof and none of these are reliable means of backing up your site, so next time TAKE BACKUPS of your site. And these methods only show what is publicly visible (the generated HTML and images). But in an emergency, you can at least try and hope.

Before you try these methods, see if we has a backup first. We often have backups of your server that may be helpful in restoring your site. 

Google's Cache

If Google has indexed your page, it is possible they still have a cached copy of it.

  1. Search for your page on Google.

  2. Hover over your listing so that the double arrow next to the listing appears.

  3. Hover over the double arrows until the preview of your site loads.

  4. Look for the "Cached" link, and click on it.

This will show you the cached version of the web page, which hopefully has what you were seeking.

Bing's Cache

Microsoft Bing also caches your pages when it indexes them, and it may be possible to view a cached copy on Bing.

  1. Search for your page on Bing.

  2. Hover over your listing so that the single arrow next to the listing appears.

  3. Hover over the single arrow until the preview of your site loads.

  4. Look for the "Cached" link, and click on it.

Hopefully the cached page it shows contains what you need.

Internet Archive (Wayback Machine)

Another option is the Internet Archive, which potentially has years of archives of your website. If the Internet Archive has archived your pages, then you may be able to search for it using the Wayback Machine.

  1. Visit the Internet Archive.

  2. Enter the URL you want to look up in the Wayback Machine search box.

  3. Click the "Take Me Back" button.

  4. Click the year and date you want to see.

This will show you what the page looked like on that date.

Reconstruct Your Site

And the last resort is to rebuild it. Check your computer at home or the office and see if you can piece together what you had. Hopefully you have what you need there to reconstruct your site.
 

See also: Restore Website Files via R1Soft BackupsMake a cPanel Account Backup

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