How to Restore Permanently Deleted Pages on WordPress
A common question we get asked is “How to Restore Permanently Deleted Pages on WordPress “. It is possible to restore permanently deleted pages on WordPress from the trash folder on your website dashboard with just a few clicks, but that’s only for recently deleted pages. If you find yourself in a situation where your website Pages Posts have been removed permanently, this article offers a guide on how to go about their restoration. But first, we take a look at how this situation may happen.
Common reasons why WordPress Pages and Posts are deleted permanently?
These are the ways that permanently deleted pages and posts on WordPress, namely:
- Selecting posts and choosing to delete them permanently.
- Deletion of the primary administrator account, when this happens, all posts and pages under the account disappear.
- Hackers breaching your site and deleting pages and posts as sabotage
- Update errors: glitches can happen randomly during updates making blog pages and posts disappear.
Where humans are involved, mistakes may happen. The important thing is to avoid panicking. You can do more with a cooler head than with a jumpy mind. There are ways you can explore to get your pages and post back.
6 Ways to restore permanently deleted Pages & Posts on WordPress
1.Restore from backup using a plugin
Any information security expert will tell you that the surest way to get your data back after hacking, damage, or any other disaster is to restore your backup. If you haven’t yet set up a backup for your WordPress, it’s best you started now with plugins so that when shit hits the fan, you can restore your data with ease.
Plugins like Updraft, WPVivid, VaultPress, and BlogVault can be used to backup and restore data on the WordPress platform with just one click and in just a few minutes.
Do you have a backup for your WordPress? Here are the steps to use BlogVault to get your pages back:
- On BlogVault, navigate to Backups and choose Test Restore, then select the backup copy you want and proceed. This should create a copy of your blog on the Test Restore Site.
- Proceed to the created Test Restore Site and look if your pages have been recovered. Also, confirm if you have all the data, including recently created pages.
- If the data is okay, move back to Backups and do the actual restoration now, from the backup copy you’ve just tested and verified to be okay.
- But if the data on the Test Restore Site is not up-to-date, go back and make a new backup copy of your site before proceeding with the restoration. That way, you’ll get your deleted pages and posts and still keep recently created pages.
2.Restore from backup using your web host
Most web hosting companies perform daily, weekly or monthly backups, freely or at a fee, for their clients as part of their services package. If you are paying for a web hosting package that includes such a deal, then:
- Sign in to your hosting account
- Check your website settings for a backup
- Restore your pages and posts with a single click
; If you can’t access the backup copy, ask your hosting services provider for it and restore your site manually using cPanel, FTP, or phpMyAdmin.
3.Restore from web hosting provider backup copy using softaculous
Does your hosting services provider use Softaculous? If your site was installed using the software and the option to make backup copies was selected, you could easily restore your site from it.
- On your Web Hosting Account, go to cPanel and find Softaculous.
- Open the folder and check for backups, select the one you want to restore, and click Restore.
There’s only one catch; there’s no way to check the backup copy and see if it contains everything unless you create a staging site, download the copy, restore it there, and then Verify it before proceeding with the actual restoration. It sounds tedious, but for the safety of your data, it’s worth it.
4.Restore from Google Cache
This is only if Google has not indexed your pages. Google always retains cached versions of sites in their archives. Here is how to check for yours:
- Goto Google Use the following command to search the URL of the post or page you want to recover: site:www.mysite.com/old_post_name. Make sure to replace mysite with the name of your website.
- If your page appears in the results, click the arrow pointing to it. You will be asked to choose between Similar and Cached. Pick the one that contains the content you want to restore, copy the content and recreate the page.
5.Restore from WordPress Database
You can check your site’s database for deleted pages and posts. While it may not allow restoration of the pages, you can copy the content and post it afresh.
On your web hosting account, navigate to the cPanel and click phpMyAdmin.
In the left column of the phpMyAdmin section is a list of database names. Click on yours.
If you’ve forgotten your database name, use cPanel ->File Manager ->public.html and download the wp-config.php file. Open it with
Notepad, and you’ll find the name of your database.
After you click on your database, you’ll see a table with a list of items. Click on WP_Posts.
You will be directed to a new page containing all your site’s content; in HTML format. To open and view files, click on Edit.
Copy the content and create a new post or page
6. Recover from Wayback Machine
The alternative to searching the google engine for cached copies of your blog pages and posts is browsing archived pages on the Wayback Machine. It’s an internet archive that takes snapshots of sites on the internet periodically for archiving.
- Visit https://archive.org/web.
- In the search field, type the address of your site and click Browse History. You’ll get a list of how many times the machine saved your site over a particular period.
- You’ll get a timeline and calendar too; use this to find the archive coinciding with the pages you want to restore.
- Click on the date for a snapshot of what the machine saved
- Copy the content and post afresh
How to Restore Deleted Permanently Pages on WordPress - parting Shot
Imagine waking up one morning and finding some or all your posts and pages on WordPress are gone? This is not an inconceivable situation; with just a few human errors or hacks, your data can disappear. However, if you’ve made backups, you won’t have to worry. You can quickly restore your website posts and pages with one click. Creating and maintaining a backup copy of your WordPress site is the only way to void hassles after chaos unfolds.
