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How to Easily Create a Staging Site for WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to create a staging site for WordPress but are not sure where to start?

A WordPress staging site is a test site that you can use to “safely” make plugin updates and other changes before going live.

In this step-by-step guide, we’ll show you how to easily create a staging environment for your WordPress site. We will cover several different methods and most of them only require a few clicks.

How to create a staging site for WordPress

What is a Staging Site?

A staging site is a clone of your live website that is used for testing changes before making them live. Staging sites help you catch errors, so you don’t end up breaking your live website.

In the past, it used to be very difficult to setup a WordPress staging site, but now that has changed so even a non-technical person can do it.

A lot of users install WordPress locally on their Windows or Mac computers to test changes. Once they’re done with the updates, they simply upload those changes from localhost to live server

The biggest problem with this approach is what if something that worked on your localhost does not work on the live server?

Often the local sites and live WordPress hosting servers are not running the same environment.

Since the staging site lives on your web hosting server, you can easily prevent all those errors because it runs the same server configuration as your live site.

With that said, let’s take a look at how to set up a staging site for WordPress.

How to Easily Create a WordPress Staging Site

There are multiple ways to create a staging site for WordPress. The easiest of them is to use your hosting provider’s built-in staging site feature.

Some of the best WordPress hosting companies already offer 1-click staging websites. If your website is hosted with one of them, then you can easily create a staging site without any hassle.

If you’re not with one of these popular hosting solutions, then we also have a solution to help you create a WordPress staging site using a plugin (and even manually).

For faster browsing, you can use the navigation below to jump to the section that’s most applicable to you.

Creating A Staging Site on Bluehost

Bluehost is one of the best WordPress hosting companies. They offer a quick 1-click staging site solution that comes with all their plans.

First, you need to log in to your WordPress site’s admin area and go to Bluehost » Staging page.

Creating a staging website on bBuehost

This will bring you to Bluehost’s staging site wizard. Next, you need to click on the ‘Create Staging Site’ button to continue.

Bluehost will now prepare the staging environment for your website. Once finished, you will see a success message and an option to switch between the production and staging sites.

Switch to staging website

Simply click on the radio button next to the Staging site and Bluehost will switch to your staging website.

Once switched, you will see a button on top of the screen indicating that you are working on the staging website.

Staging envronment Bluehost

You can go ahead and work on your website without worrying about it affecting your live site.

Deploying changes from staging to live site on Bluehost

Once you are ready to push changes from staging to the live site, simply go to Bluehost » Staging page.

Deploying changes from staging to live

From here, you’ll see the deployment options drop-down menu next to your staging website. You can deploy only the files, only the database, or deploy all changes.

If you’re not sure, then click on the ‘Deploy All Changes’ button to continue.

This will bring up a popup where you will be asked to confirm that you want to deploy the staging site to the production site. Click on ‘Deploy’ button to continue.

Confirm deployment

Bluehost will now start deploying your staging site to the live site. Depending on the size of your website, this may take a while.

The pop-up will automatically disappear when deployment is over and you’ll see a success message.

Switch back to production website

You can now switch back to your live website to see your changes in action by clicking on the Radio button next to the Production site URL.

Cloning Production Site to Staging

Now, as you switch back to the production website any changes you make there are not automatically synced to your staging website.

In the future, if you want to test more things on your staging website you’ll need to duplicate your site.

Simply go to the Bluehost » Staging page and click on the ‘Clone to staging’ button.

Clone to staging

Bluehost will then clone the latest changes to your live website to your staging website. After that, you can switch to the staging website for testing and development.

Creating a Staging Site on SiteGround

SiteGround is another top WordPress hosting company offering a 1-click staging feature with their GrowBig and GoGeek plans.

If your website is hosted with SiteGround, then this is how you would set up a staging website.

First, you need to log in to your SiteGround dashboard and switch to the Websites tab. From here you need to choose the Site Tools below your website.

SiteGround dashboard

On the next screen, you need to click on WordPress » Staging menu from the left column.

From here, you need to select your website and then provide a name for your staging copy.

SiteGround make a staging copy of your website

Click on the ‘Create’ button to continue and Siteground will create a staging copy of your website.

After that, you need to click on the ‘Go to protected URLs’ button so that you can password-protect your staging website and keep it private.

Siteground staging site created

On the next screen, Siteground will automatically fill in the URL and path for your staging website.

You need to enter the username and password that you want to use to protect your staging site.

Protect staging website

Click on the Protect button to save your settings.

You can now go back to WordPress » Staging page and click on the login to Admin Panel button next to your staging website.

Login to your staging website

SiteGround will now open the WordPress admin area of your staging website. You can test your changes on this staging website.

Deploy Changes Back to Your Live Website

Once you have tried your changes on the staging website, you may want to merge them to your live website.

SiteGround makes this easy too.

Simply click on WordPress » Staging menu from the left column. Then click on the three-dot menu next to your staging site under the ‘Manage Staging Copies’ section.

Deploy all changes from staging to live website

The menu will show you two deployment options. You can either choose ‘Full Deploy’ or ‘Custom Deploy’ option.

The ‘Full Deploy’ option merges everything from staging website to your live website. ‘Custom deploy’ allows you to select which files or data you want to merge.

If you are unsure, then choose ‘Full Deploy’ option.

SiteGround will then copy the staging site to your live website.

Merging Live to Your Staging Website

Changes you make to your live website are not automatically copied to your staging website, though.

Each time you need to work on your staging website, repeat the process above to create a fresh staging website.

Creating a Staging Site on WP Engine

WP Engine is the best WordPress managed hosting company in the world. Managed WordPress hosting is a concierge service for your WordPress site where the hosting provider takes care of updates, backups, security, and performance.

WP Engine offers a one-click staging solution with all their plans. If you are using WP Engine to host your website, then this is how you would set up a staging environment for your site.

First, you need to log in to your WP Engine dashboard. Next, go to the ‘Sites’ page and select your website by clicking on it.

WP Engine sites

This will bring you to your website dashboard.

Now, you need to click on the ‘Add Staging’ link from the left column or select it under your site name at the top.

Click to add staging environment in WP Engine

This will bring you to the ‘Add Environment’ screen.

You’ll be asked to choose how you wish to proceed with your staging environment.

Copy existing environment to staging site

Here is what each of these options does:

  • ‘Start with a new blank site’ creates a new empty site.
  • ‘Start with a guided experience’ creates a new site with a guided experience and demo content.
  • ‘Copy an existing environment to this site’ will copy your production or development environment to this site (e.g. copy your live site to this environment).
  • ‘Move an existing environment’ moves an environment to this site (e.g. move the development environment to the Staging)
  • ‘Start with a WooCommerce site’ creates a new WordPress site with WooCommerce pre-installed.

Since you want to create a staging copy of our live website, you’ll need to click on the ‘Copy an existing environment to this site’ option.

Choose environment you wish to copy

After choosing an environment choose the latest backup you want to copy from and then click on the ‘Next’ button to continue.

Now, you’ll need to provide a name for your staging site. This name will be used in your staging site URL. After that, choose STG (staging) as your environment type.

Staging site name

Click on the ‘Create Environment’ button to continue.

WP Engine will now create a staging site for you. After that, you will be redirected to your Staging environment dashboard.

Password protect your staging environment

Next, you need to click on the Padlock button to enable password protection for your staging site.

After that, you need to switch to the ‘Utilities’ tab to copy your staging site username and password.

staging site password

You can now click on the ‘WP Admin’ button at the top to log in to your staging website.

Feel free to make changes and try out features on the staging website just as you would in a typical WordPress site you install anywhere else.

login to staging website

Deploy Changes From Staging to Live Website on WP Engine

Want to merge changes you made on the staging website to your live website?

Simply click on the ‘Copy Environment’ button to begin deployment.

Copy staging environment

This will bring you to the options page. From here, you need to choose your source and destination environments for the copy.

Here you’ll select your staging website as the source environment and your production or live website as the destination environment.

Deploy options

You can choose what you want to copy. For instance, you can copy all database tables and files, specific files and database tables, or only the file system.

Note: If you choose to copy everything then you will lose any data stored on your live website after you used it to make the staging environment. This may include important data such as new posts, pages, customers, and orders. So it’s a good idea to run a backup of your live site before deploying from staging.

Next, click on the ‘Review and Confirm’ button to begin deployment. It will take a while to copy everything to your live website.

You will get an email notification when the process is complete.

Creating A Staging Site using WordPress Plugin

If your WordPress hosting company does not provide a staging site feature, then you can still create a staging website using a WordPress plugin.

There are some disadvantages to using this method.

First, a plugin would have limited control over your hosting server. This is why it may not always give the best results.

Secondly, the plugin we will be using will store your staging site on its own servers. If you are concerned about privacy and data protection, then this may not be the ideal situation for you.

Lastly, the plugin has several known incompatibilities. Please check their incompatibilities page to make sure that your website is compatible.

That being said, let’s see how to create a staging WordPress site using a WordPress plugin.

The first thing that you need to do is install and activate the WP Stagecoach plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled WP Stagecoach to your admin bar. Clicking on it will take you to the plugin’s settings page.

Enter WPStagecoach API keys

You will need to enter your WP Stagecoach username and the API key which you can find under your account on the plugin website.

After that, you need to visit the WP Stagecoach » WP Stagecoach page and choose a name for your staging site. This name will also be used as the subdomain of your WordPress staging website.

Connect WP Stagecoach

Don’t forget to check the box next to the ‘Password protect the staging site’ option. It will protect your staging website from public view and search engines.

Click on the ‘Ride the Stagecoach’ button to continue.

WP Stagecoach progress

The plugin will now create a backup of your WordPress files and database to export them for your staging site.

It may take a while depending on the size of your WordPress website.

Once finished, you will see the link to your staging site and its admin area.

WP Stagecoach fiinished creating a staging site

You can click the link to visit your staging site and start working on it.

You’ll notice a bright orange message in the admin bar at the top indicating that you are working on your staging site.

WPSC staging preview

Deploying Staging Site to Live Using WP Stagecoach

Once you are ready to import changes to your live site, head over to the WP Stagecoach » Import Changes page and click on the check for changes button.

Check for changes

The plugin will now check for changes on your staging site and then show you options to import them.

You can choose from all changes, file changes, or database changes.

Changes options

The plugin will show you the progress of the import and will notify you when it is done.

You can now test your live site to see if all changes were successfully imported.

Create a Staging Site for WordPress Manually

This method will teach you to manually create a staging site for your WordPress install. It is for advanced users and requires more work than other methods described above.

Another disadvantage of this method is that your website will be temporarily unavailable when deploying changes back from staging to the live server.

That being said, let’s see how to manually create a staging environment for your WordPress site.

First, you need to create a subdomain for your staging website. Go to your hosting account’s dashboard and click on the ‘Subdomains’ link located under the domains section.

Staging subdomain

Note: We’re using Bluehost in our example screenshot, so your screen may look different.

Provide a name for your subdomain (such as staging.example.com), and then click on the create button.

Your hosting control panel will now add your subdomain, which you can use to import your live WordPress site.

Next, you need to install and activate the Duplicator plugin on your live site. If you need full features, you can get the premium version of Duplicator here.

Upon activation, you need to click on the Duplicator menu in your WordPress admin sidebar and click on the ‘Create New’ button under Packages.

Create new Duplicator package

After that, you will be asked to click on the ‘Next’ button to continue. Duplicator will now run the website duplicator wizard.

First, it will run some tests to see if everything is in order. If all items are marked ‘Good,’ then click on the ‘Build’ button.

Duplicator build package button

The plugin will now start creating a Duplicator package for your WordPress site. This process may take a few minutes depending on the size of your website.

Once finished, you’ll see download options for Installer and the Archive package. You need to click on the ‘Download Both Files’ button to download both files on your computer.

Download Duplicator package and installer to your computer

You’ll need to upload both of these files to the file directory of the subdomain you just created. For details, see our guide on how to use FTP to upload files to your WordPress website.

Next, your new staging WordPress site will need a new database. Let’s create one.

Head over to your WordPress hosting account’s control panel and click on ‘MySQL Databases’ icon located under the ‘Databases’ section.

MySQL database

If you are not using Bluehost, then your WordPress hosting environment may look a bit different. Don’t worry and just look for the Databases section.

On the next screen, provide a name for your database and then click on the create database button.

Staging site database

Next, you need to create a MySQL user for your database.

Scroll down to the MySQL Users section and provide a username and password for your new database user.

Database username and password

Now you need to give this user permission to access and modify the database you created earlier.

Simply scroll down to the ‘Add user to database’ section and select your database and the user you just created.

Add user to database

After that, click on the ‘Add’ button to continue.

You will be asked to select privileges for the user. Go ahead and select ‘All Privileges’ checkbox and then click on the ‘Make changes’ button.

Give priviledges

Now your database is ready to be used for your staging website.

Next, you need to open a new browser tab and visit enter the subdomain of your staging site like this:

https://yoursubdomain.example.com/installer.php

Don’t forget to replace yoursubdomain with the actual subdomain and example.com with your own domain name.

This will launch the Duplicator installer wizard.

Enter database details

Under the ‘Setup’ section, the installer will ask you to enter your WordPress database information.

Your host will likely be localhost. After that, you will enter the details of the database you created for your new domain name in the earlier step.

Click on the ‘Validate’ button to make sure that Duplicator can connect to your database.

Duplicator validated

Once done, click on the ‘Next’ button to continue.

Duplicator will now unpack your WordPress database and files and import them to your staging site.

Once finished, you will see a success message.

Duplicator wizard finish

You can click on the ‘Admin Login’ button to enter the WordPress admin area of your website on the new staging site.

Now you have your staging site set up. You can protect it by adding password protection to the subdomain.

Head over to your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard and click on the ‘Directory Privacy’ icon.

Directory privacy

Next, you need to select your subdomain folder and then select the option to ‘password protect this directory’ checkbox.

You will be asked to provide a name for this setting, and then enter a username and password.

Password protect staging site

Click on the save button to store your settings. Your staging site will now be hidden behind password protection, keeping it out of search engines’ hands and the public’s eyes.

You can now work on your staging site and make any changes you want.

Manually Deploy Staging Site to Live

After you are ready to deploy changes from your staging site to the live server, you will follow the same steps described above.

Simply create a new Duplicator package on your staging site and download the Installer and Archive files to your computer (See instructions above).

Next, you need to head over to your live site and create a complete WordPress backup (you can use Duplicator to create a complete backup as well).

Once you are done, you will need to delete all WordPress files and folders from your live website. This means your WordPress site will be down for a while.

Finally, follow the instructions above to run the Duplicator installer wizard to import the staging site to the live server.

As you can see, the last method is not the best method at all. There are many ways during the process that you can damage your site.

We suggest avoiding this method at all costs unless you have no other choice. We recommend using a reliable hosting provider like Bluehost, SiteGround, or WP Engine that offers built-in staging site features.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily create a staging environment for your WordPress site. If you run into any issues, check out our ultimate guide to fixing the most common WordPress errors.

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200 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Hey WPBeginner readers,
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  2. There IS a downside. I followed all the steps for BlueHost and made a number of changes to my home page. Worked perfectly on the staging site.

    When I pushed it to production, my home page was a disaster. A few changes made it through but most did not. Worse, much of the content on the production site was trashed or even missing.

    Panicky, I put the production site into maintenance mode to prevent users from seeing it. Then BlueHost’s tech support did a great job of moving the staging site to production for me and cleaning up a bunch of other problems that resulted. It took a long, tense 90 minutes before everything was back, mostly, to what I wanted. I just had to change some internal links and menu items that still pointed to the staging site.

    Start to finish I was only down a couple of hours. The BlueHost customer support rep was wonderful but didn’t have a good explanation of what went wrong. Suffice it to say I’ll NEVER use staging again!

    • Thank you for your feedback, we’ll look to make it more clear in the article but unless you sync changes like posts, they will not go to your staging site and if you overwrite your live site with your staging it won’t include your new content. For your design it would heavily depend on what you’re using on your site as that should normally include any design changes.

      Admin

  3. Is this something that can be used to test out a new theme? Can I keep my current website live and work on a new theme at the same time?

    • It’s one of the reasons why I use staging. When there’s a request to change the website’s design, a copy of the website is created where all the necessary adjustments are fine-tuned, and then the changes are easily transferred to the live version. It’s much more practical than copying the website to a subdomain and performing subsequent migration, which can be quite complicated.

  4. Should I use the staging site just for plugin updates and such? Can I update pages and posts in staging then push to live? Otherwise I have to create a new staging site prior to every plugin/update test.

    • You would want to use a staging site for major plugin and design updates for your site. Updating pages and posts is normally something you would do on your primary site and you can do minor updates safely as long as you have a backup of your site from before the update.

      Admin

  5. Do the Staging URLs (for posts and pages) automatically change once you hit deploy? I am worried that I am going to have a ton of 404 errors and ruin my SEO.

  6. I want to create a sandbox, I’m using WordPress on Bluehost, however I don’t have the Bluehost entries on my wordpress admin menu, and I can find no sandbox wizard directly on the Bluehost site. Where do I go from here?

    • You may have removed the plugin that added that, if you reach out to your host they should be able to assist.

      Admin

  7. This worked like magic. I seriously could not live without wp beginner. My hosting service does not have a staging option, so I followed the instructions for manual set-up, no problems, everything went smoothly! Thanks for the great instructions!

  8. after creating the staging site…how do you sync data between the staging and test site….the test site is used for updates and checking…whereas….the live site has new inputs from its users….

    Is there a plugin you can recommend syncing databases when each database has two different pieces of new info,

    • We do not have a recommendation for that at the moment as it is very difficult for a tool to know what specifically to sync or not.

      Admin

  9. How does a person just delete a staging site? I believe I backed up the staging site with updraftplus, but if I back up the staging site with updraftplus, does it also back up the regular website too or vice versa?

  10. so this manual staging does not work?

    so how do users target ‘installer.php’ if the subdom URL is ‘staging.blahwebsite.com’, then.

    • The method should still work, you would target the installer in the staging site’s subdomain. If you are having trouble with setting up or targeting the subdomain you may want to reach out to your hosting provider for their assistance.

      Admin

  11. I used the manual method to set up a staging site for testing out updating plugins before they break something. Well, something broke in the staging site. How do I go back to the original configuration of the staging site?

    • If you did not create a backup for the staging site then you would delete the staging site and recreate it as one option.

      Admin

  12. Looks like there’s a chunk missing for the manual staging site creation. No upload of files for Duplicator.

    • Thank you for sharing that, we will look into updating the article when we are able

      Admin

  13. I use bluehost hosting and they say they don’t recommend the beta version. So, the local host is the best option for me. Isn’t it?

    • If they do not recommend beta for your site, you can use local as an alternative.

      Admin

  14. If I have new blog posts on the original production site, what will happen I push the staging site to the production site later in the future?

    • The new content would be removed, we would recommend importing all new content to the staging site before overwriting the live site.

      Admin

  15. Hello friend.
    Just today, I mistakenly activated the staging mode (I’m a newbie tho) and there wasn’t any more option.
    Later I came on, I couldn’t login to my wordpress. It returns an error message that I can’t login to a site that’s on staging mode.
    I contacted bluehost, that did all they can, yet my site still says it’s on staging mode and I can’t login my wordpress.
    What do I do please?

  16. Hi,
    Thanks for this. I have WP engine and my WordPress theme got d-registered because I am using it on the stage environment and dev.
    What’s the workaround that?

    thank you

    • You would need to reach out to your specific theme’s support for their workaround for this situation

      Admin

  17. Hi I made changes in my WP Production site but not in the staging area. I want to reset my staging area to look like my Production site, or failing that delete my Staging area and start again. How can i do this?

    • It would depend on the method you used but if you made changes to the live site’s design then the simplest method would be to remove the current staging site and create it again.

      Admin

  18. Great article. I really learned a lot.

    I have a question, please, about the manual method:

    Is it required to password protect the directory of the subdomain in cPanel, since the admin access to the website is already protected by a password?

    Thank you very much.

    • While not required, it helps prevent your users from trying to access the staging site :)

      Admin

  19. In that staging site
    I want to give someone details to do something on my staging site, but I don’t want him to know my live site password, but is the Same thing with my live site. How can I do that

    • You would create a new user for them on your staging site for what it sounds like you want to do and you can remove that staging user later.

      Admin

  20. If I download WAMP on my computer and use the localhost, couldn’t install the UpdraftPlus plugin and let that be my staging site? Isn’t this another alternative?

  21. I’m trying to set up a staging environment on my WordPress site hosted by Bluehost. I’m stopped at step one! when I go to the WordPress admin area, I don’t see bluehost at the top of the page. The topmost option in the nav menu on the left is “Dashboard”. No sign of “Staging” anywhere. Help?

    • You likely removed the BlueHost plugin, if you reach out to BlueHost’s support they should be able to let you know their current methods available :)

      Admin

  22. Hello
    I tried but did not succeed. Getting error ” this site can’t be reached”.
    I am on Godaddy and using Cloudflare. And I have not created a separate FTP account.

  23. thank you for the article. one question: If I update WordPress ONLY on the staging site, will it affect also my live-site?
    thank you for your answer. regards, s.

  24. Thank you for this article.

    Do you know of a way to test membership (loginlogoff ) functionality without going live on the actual site. In the staging environment or developing. TIA

  25. Great article, with one step missing for the manual instructions.
    After downloading the duplicator files to your computer, you then have to upload the installer file and archive file to your newly created subdomain directory.
    Otherwise when you try to run the installer you get a 404 page.
    Otherwise great guide!
    Thanks….

  26. No option to try the staging feature on Bluehost yet. Message says “Please contact support to find out how to enable staging.” I was just on the phone with Bluehost about another issue and the rep I was speaking with never heard of this new feature.

    • It would depend on what rep you were talking to as it is a new feature so not all reps may be knowledgeable yet

      Admin

    • To be able to use the staging feature provided by Bluehost, you must install and activate the Blushost plugin.

  27. Thank you for this great info, as always. Now is this something I could use to play around with a new page builder? I want to test out Thrive Architect but want to do so without messing anything up. Or, suppose I wanted to play around with a new theme. These may be 2 different questions.

    • You could certainly test those changes with a staging environment without having to worry about what people see on the site.

      Admin

  28. Thanks for the info. I currently use Bluehost but don’t have the staging site option I would love to test it out for a new theme I’d like to try before purchasing it. I contacted BH tech support the rep told me the feature is in development. Thanks again for the info.

    • Glad we could bring this feature to your attention even if it is currently being developed

      Admin

      • I was able to access the feature today. I’m excited to use it. Thanks again for the info. I’m excited to try out the staging feature.

  29. this is a great information, I have two websites, but I don’t feel like having both look the same.

    pls, I need help.

    is there any code I can add on >dashboard >customize >additional css,,, for the font color of my site to be pure black in color..

    I have this theme that I am using, it gives me everything I want. but the font color of my blog posts are light black. I will like to change the color to pure black

    any solution?
    thank you.

  30. Great article but the push back to live is a little brief. I have a WooCommerce site that needs a theme change. I used Duplicator Pro to make a copy on a staging server. I’ve made all the changes to the site including adding a couple of new plugins.

    Now I want to push the site back but I can’t do the same thing as there are new orders on the live site. How do I copy the site back without affecting the orders etc..?

    • Sadly, the safest method for that would be to prevent orders while updating from staging.

      Admin

  31. I haven’t read the comments yet, but I’ve been at this all day. The reason why is because this page does not tell you how to create a database user and assign privileges to the said user.

    Thankfully, I was able to figure it out, but that’s a KEY step that is missing to connect the site and database.

    • Apologies about the confusion, we will certainly look into clarifying that. If you reach out to your hosting provider they normally have a user already created.

      Admin

  32. Hi guys,
    Thanks for your awesome post. I like the idea that the provider has the staging, productive and a test environment out of box.
    But I have two questions:
    1. Can write a little bit how it works by your suggested providers?
    2. Have you also providers which are located in the EU or better in Germany? And offer staging environment out of box?

    Kind regard

  33. Thank you so much for this information! And if anyone’s wondering, yes, it’s still relevant 4.5 years later.

  34. Hi there

    I am in the process of setting up a new WordPress site but I was planning to start building everything in my staging environment because I would like my live site to have a “under construction” landing page.

    What I am not sure of is how to push my changes from the staging site to my live site when I am ready. Would you mind describing this process please?

    Thank you
    Jess

    • If it’s simply a matter of wanting a “Under Construction” page while keeping the rest of the sight off limits to the public, there are plugins that will do that. Search “under construction.”

  35. Hi, my question is, i created a staging environment, work there make some updates on structure of pages, layouts, new categories, new pluig-in.

    Ok, but in real live, my site is growing with new posts, comments, images, videos, etc…

    When i push stage back to life, i will lost thes new itens that were create in real live ??? I test this in sitegroud, and i loose ever with advanved “push to live”

    tks

  36. Hi, thanks for such a useful article,

    I’m having a small issue when I give it a go,

    I have got as far down as

    “Once WordPress has connected to your staging database, it should detect that WordPress has been installed, and prompt you to login” and I am stuck – it autoredirected to the wp-login and gave me a blank page. Not a 404, just a clean white screen.

    On the main page the login has been renamed so I try to navigate to that instead and again just a clean white screen.

    Can anyone give me any pointers on where I’m going wrong?

  37. Hi,

    Thanks for this article!
    I followed all the steps but I think I have missed one

    I created a staging environment and checked site url in wp-options and updated wp-config file but the staging site is being redirected to the primary site.

    Do I need to change any other setting?

  38. Hi! Thanks for the useful article!
    Question, is it necessary to create a new database for your subdomain? Can’t you just use your root domain’s database?
    Same for the FTP account, is it necessary to create a new one? I can now access my subdomain easily through my main FTP.
    Thanks!
    Best,
    Ruth

  39. Hello!

    Perhaps this was already covered. Do I need a child theme on my sub-domain serving as my staging site? I am adding custom code and modifications to the new theme on my subdomain with the intention of switching all of this over to the live site when finally ready. Would this complicate things when switching from the staging site to replacing what is currently the live site?

    Thank You!

  40. Hi, this article is super helpful. I have encountered one problem though, when I go to visit my staging URL, I have the following message appear ‘server DNS address could not be found’. I have also cleared my cache and browser history as someone wrote this might help, but it hasn’t worked. I’m wondering what I am doing wrong. Any help would be great.

    Lee

  41. While I appreciate the detailed instructions (I don’t like installing plugins to accomplish such tasks), I don’t see any advice concerning keeping the staging and live sites in sync. WordPress sites are generally edited live with respect to content—posts, products, media, etc. Once you follow these directions, the two content sets will diverge as users add content to the live site while the developer’s staging version remains an old copy. I don’t see a good solution for this save a cron rsync job. Any tips?

  42. After you create the staging subdomain and ftp account.

    Skip all the other copying and database junk.

    Install duplicator on your live site. Make a duplicate backup, which includes a zipped copy and an install. Php file.

    Upload both to your staging area. (Maybe go in and create a database and user for the staging site in cpanel while you wait for the two fingers to upload)

    Point your browser to staging.domain.com/install.php and follow the prompts.

    Then go back to the rest of this tutorial for locking it down.

  43. Hi, I followed another tutorial before I found this one and I installed WordPress BEFORE copying files over and running the SQL queries. My staging site does not populate with live site’s data. Any help you can offer about what to do at this point would be appreciated…

  44. The staging site does not look exactly like my primary site. The default banner is there instead of my uploaded media (even though that file has transfered) and rather than a nav bar with drop down menus, I have a list of all of my site’s webpages. Is this normal? If not, could you point me where to sort it out?

    Thanks for this article!

  45. I keep getting this error when I try to run SQL queries ” #2013 – Lost connection to MySQL server during query”

  46. Thank you for the great tutorial! I followed it thourgh and created a staging site. However, the staging site seems to be missing some settings from the original site (where I am working with a template), e.g. the font is different, the menu and logo is missing and some other settings are just off. Are there additional files I need to copy?
    Thanks a lot!

  47. Very thorough instructions! We currently have WordPress 4.3.6 version. I think there is a newer version 4.7; however, I am not updating due to past problems with my theme and child after an update. If I follow your instructions to install WordPress on computer, it most likely will affect the existing site as well which will cause a problem. Do you agree? and how do I proceed? thanks.

    • Hi Lynn,

      You can safely install WordPress on your computer and import content from your live site. This way you will be able to test drive new WordPress version with your current theme and child theme.

      Admin

    • Lol, Mike, you’re my kinda person! And although you’ve probably sped ahead to something easier by now, I thought I would mention something that I saw but haven’t tried: Backup Buddy. I don’t know how thorough it would be for this purpose. Since my site is pretty static, I used a subdomain to reconstruct my site – just copied and pasted my content as ascii text. Bluehost said they could make it my main site (not subdomain with redirect – make it a domain) when I’m done. Of course you have to set up the widgets, plugins, etc. Still working on it because I’m definitely a beginner. This would be really laborious for a more sophisticated site.

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