Staging WordPress

How to clone a WordPress website

What is staging?

Staging a WordPress site allows you to clone it before making any changes to you live website. This allows you to experiment around with your WordPress website without risk of something bad happening to your live website.

It is useful when making large changes, such as installing or changing themes, adding plugins, or changing important settings. Most hosts charge a premium fee for this service, we offer it without a price tag!

Pre-Requirements

It is required that you already have a hosting service and a WordPress website active at Gilect, and know how to use Softaculous.

If this is not already the case, please read the articles linked below:

Create a Hosting ServiceHow To Install WordPress

Accessing the WordPress Manager

The WordPress manager can be accessed via Softaculous.

Staging

After accessing the WordPress manager, you can click the "Staging" button for the WordPress website you wish to stage.

Click the "Staging" button

Staging Installation Details

Afterward, fill out the installation URL and directory for the cloned website. Optionally, you can choose a custom name for the database name to be created for the cloned site.

It is recommended to stage your website on a directory. You can choose any directory that isn't already in use. If you choose "staging" as your directory, your cloned website will be accessed at yourdomain.com/directory.

Fill out the directory and database name

Site Settings

Fill out the name of your cloned WordPress site, and choose whether or not you want to have it visible in search engines.

You should not have your cloned website visible in search engines, as it is only a temporary website and can have negative impacts toward your actual website.

Choose a name

Finishing

After all information is filled out, simply press the "Create Staging" button, and the process will begin.

Simply fill out the form and submit it

It can take up to 5 minutes for the process to complete. If an error unexpectedly occurs, please go back and resubmit the form.

Congratulations, your website was staged successfully!

Accessing your staged website

You can easily access and log into your website after completing the staging process. This can be easily done by clicking the Wp-Admin links after the installation completes.

Any changes that you make to this cloned website will not be reflected onto your actual live website. You can test out themes and plugins without risking data loss on your live website.

Pushing Changes to Live Website

If you are content with the changes you made to your cloned website, you can easily push the changes to your live website.

Access the WordPress manager, select the staged installation, and select the "Push to Live" option:

You can either keep the default settings, or customize them. If you do not know what you are doing, you should not customize the settings.

The process can take up to five minutes.

Congratulations, your website was pushed to live!

Deleting The Staged Website

If you already pushed changes to live or no longer need the cloned website, you can simple delete it through the WordPress manager.

Staging a staged website

It is possible to stage a website which was already staged. You can stage an unlimited amount of stages. This is useful if you are making large changes to a staged website and want to change something big again.

It is, however, more practical to backup your website.