Anybody who uses WordPress is familiar with how quick it is to set up a website. But what happens if you decide to delete it after a while?
Although it’s not as simple as building a website (at least, these days!), it’s still fairly easy.
Whatever your reason may be, we’re here to help! Read on as we walk you through the process of removing a WordPress site.
Even though this seems counterintuitive, it’s still a good idea to make a backup of your website before deleting it.
So if you wish to travel back in time and restore your site in the future, you’ll have a copy of both your files AND your database. Well, that’s probably not in your plans today. But, who’s to say you won’t change your mind in the next few years or maybe in a couple of months?
With that said, if you don’t know how to back up your website, it’s pretty simple to do, especially with a managed WordPress hosting platform.
Here’s how:
And that’s it! You’ve successfully backed up your website. You can pretty much just import the file back into your WordPress dashboard if ever you decide you want your files and database back.
With the use of an FTP client or the File Manager, WordPress can be uninstalled manually. Here’s how it works.
And there you have it!
Well, we’re not done just yet. The database is still there even if the software has been removed. So let’s uninstall WordPress completely by removing it as well.
That’s it! You’ve successfully deleted your website.
If you’re not a fan of the method we mentioned above, you can always delete your website using your web hosting dashboard. We’ll be using one of the best web hosts, Hostinger, for this example again.
Let’s get right into it:
That’s pretty much all there is to it, your website will now be removed from your web hosting account.
Your website could still appear on the internet even after you’ve removed it. For instance, it can still show up on website archives and search engine results. Fortunately, there’s a way to remove it.
One way of doing so is by using the Google Search Console. In a period of up to six months, Google offers a means to take a website off of its search results. And, if your website is still inactive after those six months, it won’t appear in the search results at all.
Aside from Google, Yahoo and Bing are also two more widely used search engines. And, because Bing also powers Yahoo search, you can use Bing’s Block URLs tool to remove your website from both sites.
If you want to go even further, you can even remove your website from the Internet Archives. This tool basically shows your website way back before you even deleted it. And, if you don’t want people to see that, all you have to do is go to their website and email them to remove it from their database.
Deleting your website is a fairly easy and straightforward process. With the 2 ways we mentioned, all it takes is a few clicks to say goodbye to your website.
But, as a reminder, remember to always create a backup of your website before removing any content. You’ll never know what can happen, and once your data is gone, it’s gone forever. There is no way to get it back.
Don’t worry though, as long as you follow everything we mentioned, you’re as good as safe and you can start over with ease anytime you’d like to.
