Best way to duplicate a wordpress site for staging purposes?
-
I want to make some changes to my Wordpress site, and want to somehow set up a live staging area. Does anyone know of a good way to do this?
I want all of the same content there I just want to be able to make changes to it and try it all out before going live. Any thoughts on this?
Also I want to be sure the staging site doesn't get indexed since it will be a complete duplicate of my existing site.
Thanks!
-
Howdy,
I've recently become a fan of WPengine for this reason - they've got some neat staging features, including, I believe, being able to stage changes, check them out, and push them live. But, that would probably require you to change hosting.
That said, here's how I tend to move sites from development to production (or production to development). Someone who knows more might have some changes or suggestions, or an easier way, but this is what works for me:
-
Install WordPress somewhere. Make sure its noindexed and/or password protect the directory.
-
Download a copy of your wp-content folder from your existing site (this will pull all of your themes, plugins, etc.)
-
Export a copy of your wordpress database (how to here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Backing_Up_Your_Database)
-
Open up your database in a text editor (I like Notepad++) and locate the first instance of your old domain name with the new one and then use find and replace to switch out all instances of the old domain name for the new one e.g. if it's noahsdad.com/ and you're moving to dev.noahsdad.com/ use find and replace to switch all occurances of noahsdad.com/ to dev.noahsdad.com/. Be careful to look at trailing slashes etc.
-
Upload your wp-content file to the new wordpress install. Overwrite the old one.
-
Open the database for the fresh WP install using PHPmyadmin (or the equivalent, on your server). Import the database that you conducted the search/replace on.
The advantage of uploading the wp-content folders and then then database is that the Database changes while the files for plugins etc. are already in place. Therefore, it should retain many of the plugin settings so you won't get any serious weirdness due to an important plugin not working.
Here's a guide that I like http://wpmu.org/migrating-wordpress-to-a-new-server/. It doesn't conform exactly to the method I use (they upload the database first), and it has some extra stuff in it like updating your nameservers which you should ignore, but it covers the database part pretty nicely.
Hope this helps.
Bede
-
-
Thanks so much. I actually don't need any other staff people to see it. I just want some designers in other parts of the U.S. to see it.
The main this is how to duplicate it. Including all of the images, database, etc.
I've never done anything like this before.
Thanks.
-
OK, then use the subdomain, you can then set up with dreamweaver a check in/out system for your staff which stops people editing the same files etc. On save/put you can set it to upload it to your testing server (subdomain). you would then be able to view this from any machine in your office (i would also still block all IPs on that subdomain except for your office). Once happy you can then either upload the specific files then to the main server, or do a release every evening/other evening after testing etc.
-
I'm actually on a mac.
If I install it locally on my mac I can't let other people see it unless they are looking at my computer, correct?
I have other domains...would be better to use one of those, or to use a subdomain?
Thanks.
-
If you're on Windows, you can locally install xampp on your machine, and then install wordpress locally.
Or you can do what columK suggests and install it on a subdomain on your site. Here is info from wordpress about moving domains - you can also install a plugin to do this - I've used Wordpress Move in the past
Once you've set up the new site, go to the settings section, reading, and then click the checkbox to discourage search engines from reading the testing site - that will modify the robots.txt to block search engines.
Good luck!
Mark
-
That's what I need help trying to create. I also want the staging site to be a duplicate of the existing site, but there so much content I can't do a simple import / export through Wodpress's admin panel...
-
Why not create a subdomain that only your office IP can view? You can then test as much as you like without worrying about other people viewing it or Google.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does changing template for a wordpress site affect SEO
Hi I work for an Inventory Management Software company and we already have a WordPress site but I am currently working on re-designing of our WordPress site and in this process, we are looking for moving to a new template. I want to know what will be the impact on SEO performance while taking a shift to a new template.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cin7_Marketing0 -
Google is alternating what link it likes to rank on wordpress site and
Hi there, I'm experiencing a problem where google is pick and choosing different links structures to rank my Wordpress site for my main keywords. The site had pretty good #1 rankings for a long time but recently I noticed Google is choosing to rank the page in one of two ways. Let me just say that the original way where it held good rankings looked like this for example: flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets/ this is just an example it' is not my site. And when google decides to switch it up it uses this link structure:flowers.com > weddings (this still points to this link flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets when I hover my mouse over it) however this link structure that never appeared before and now does, usually has much lower rankings. Please note it's not both link structures being ranked at the same time for the keywords. It's one or the other that google is currently alternating in ranking and I believe it's hurting the sites position.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | z8YX9F80
I'm not sure if this is a wordpress settings thats gone wrong or what the problem is but I do know when shows the expanded and descriptive link structure flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets the rankings are higher and in 2nd place. I'm hoping by rectifying this I can regain back my position. I'm very grateful for any insight you could offer on why this is happening and how I could fix it. Thank you. PS Wordpress site has several SEO plugins0 -
Open Site Explorer - Spam analysis: need help with inbound links... from my site!
hallo, reading my spam analysis report from open explorer, I found somenthing I don't understand (please see attached image): The long list of links inside the red rectangle are inbound links with a spam score of 5 coming from my same site. How is that possible? Should I remove those links? Also , I see that many of those links are links present in the top navigation bar (about page, home page, service description etc.) or in the sidebar section of the website (categories, recent posts, recent comments). Should I treat them differently? Thank you for your time.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | micvitale0 -
What happens when I redirect an entire site to an established page on another site?
Hi There, I have a website which is dedicated to selling ONE product (in different forms) or my main brand site. It is branded similarly, targets similar keywords, and gets some traffic which convert to leads. Additionally, the auxiliary site has a Google Rank 2 in its own right. I am thinking of consolidating this "auxillary" site to the specific product page on my main site. The reason I am considering doing this is to give a "boost" to the main product page on our main site which has many core keywords sitting with SERP ranking of between 11-20 (so not in first 10) Because this auxiliary site it gets traffic and leads in its own right, I don't want this to be to the detriment of my leads overall. Question is - if I 301 redirect the entire domain from my auxillary site to the equivalent product on my main site am I likely to see a large "boost" to that product page? (i.e. will I likely see my ranking rise from 11 - 20 significantly)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | love-seo-goodness0 -
I have a general site for my insurance agency. Should I create niche sites too?
I work with several insurance agencies and I get this questions several times each month. Most agencies offer personal and business insurance and in a certain geographic location. I recommend creating a quality general agency site but would they have more success creating other nice sites as well? For example, a niche site about home insurance and one about auto insurance. What would your recommendation be?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lagunaitech1 -
What's the best way to manage content that is shared on two sites and keep both sites in search results?
I manage two sites that share some content. Currently we do not use a cross-domain canonical URL and allow both sites to be fully indexed. For business reasons, we want both sites to appear in results and need both to accumulate PR and other SEO/Social metrics. How can I manage the threat of duplicate content and still make sure business needs are met?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BostonWright0 -
Duplicate Content
Hi everyone, I have a TLD in the UK with a .co.uk and also the same site in Ireland (.ie). The only differences are the prices and different banners maybe. The .ie site pulls all of the content from the .co.uk domain. Is this classed as content duplication? I've had problems in the past in which Google struggles to index the website. At the moment the site appears completely fine in the UK SERPs but for Ireland I just have the Title and domain appearing in the SERPs, with no extended title or description because of the confusion I caused Google last time. Does anybody know a fix for this? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | royb0 -
Whats the best way to handle product microformats such as hproduct, goodrelations on ecommerce for Google?
With web3.0 results with microfrmatting showing in google, yahoo etc through reviews, instock, events, sales, pricing etc.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RampUpInteractive0