How to set up a WordPress staging site

A WordPress staging site gives you a private copy of your website to test changes on, away from your visitors. You try a change on the copy first, and only when everything works do you publish it to your live website. With us, you create the staging site and publish it with our WordPress staging plugin in your WP Admin, the dashboard where you manage WordPress.

What is a WordPress staging site?

A staging site is a copy of your website that sits in a separate location on your web space. It has its own WP Admin, where you edit the copy the same way you edit your live WordPress website. Your visitors keep seeing the live version while you work. If a change breaks something, only the copy is affected.

It's worth using one whenever a change could go wrong on your live website, for example:

• Installing new WordPress plugins or a new theme, to check that everything still works with them.
• Trying a new layout or different colours on your banners before you decide on them.
• Testing new text or a different call to action without showing a half-finished version to your visitors.
• Fixing a bug while the live website keeps running as normal.

What you need for our staging feature

To use our staging feature, you need a plan that includes it and the one.com plugin in your WordPress installation. The staging environment, the space where your copy lives, is included in every Managed Hosting for WordPress plan. It isn't available with Hosting for WordPress. On that plan, you can still use a staging plugin, as described under 'Other ways to set up a WordPress staging site'.

On an existing WordPress installation, you can add the one.com plugin yourself.

Managed Hosting for WordPress includes a staging environment and daily backups. We also update WordPress, your themes and your plugins, test every update first and roll back if anything breaks.

How to create a WordPress staging site with us

You create the staging site from your usual WP Admin, then work on the copy in a WP Admin of its own.

1. Log in to your WP Admin, then open the one.com plugin there.
2. Go to the plugin's Staging feature.
3. Create the staging site. The plugin copies your live website to the staging location.
4. Log in to staging to edit the copy in its own WP Admin. Install, change and test whatever you like there.
5. View the staging site to check how your changes look to a visitor.

How to copy your staging site to live

You publish your changes from the staging WP Admin, which you can recognise by the green bar at the top of the screen. On your live website, that bar is black. With Managed Hosting for WordPress, we back up your website every day. Before you copy, make your own backup with a WordPress backup plugin, so you have a way back whatever your plan includes.

1. Make sure you have a recent backup of your live website, so you can go back if something looks wrong after the copy.
2. In your staging WP Admin, open the Staging feature of our plugin.
3. Copy staging to live, so your visitors see the new version.

When the copy is done, open your live website and check that your changes look the way they did on staging.

Rebuild or delete your staging site

If a test goes wrong, you can rebuild the staging site instead of repairing the copy. Rebuilding overwrites it with a fresh copy of your live website, so you can start again from the version your visitors see.

When you no longer need the staging site, we recommend deleting it. Once you stop using the copy, you stop updating it, and an outdated copy makes your website more vulnerable to hacks. Deleting it removes every change you made on it. If the copy holds changes you want to keep, copy staging to live first. Our guide on how to keep your WordPress site secure covers the other steps that protect your website.

Other ways to set up a WordPress staging site

If your hosting doesn't include a staging tool, a staging plugin can make the copy for you. WP STAGING, for example, clones your whole website into a subfolder where you test your changes. You can also copy your website by hand. WordPress stores your website's address in its database, so a copy at a new address sometimes needs that address changed there. WordPress's own documentation says tools exist for this and should generally be used instead of editing the data yourself.

Whichever route you take, try your next plugin update or redesign on a copy before your visitors see it. With our Managed Hosting for WordPress plans, you make that copy and publish it from your own WP Admin.