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In WordPress, you can set up a Staging Site to view your site before publishing it live. This article assumes that you are already logged in to your WordPress.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Set Up A WordPress Staging Site
Just follow the steps below:
1. Log in to your Hosted.com Dashboard and click “Manage Services” followed by “WordPress Hosting” from the drop-down menu..
2. Click “Manage” on the right.
3. In the “Quick Manage” section on the right-hand side, click on “Softaculous” and a new tab will open.
4.Click on the “Installations” button at the top of the screen, this will take you to the Scripts Install Manager page.
5. Click on the “Create Staging” button.
6. If you want your staging site to be an exact copy of the live version, you can leave the “Site Name” box empty, alternatively, you can rename it. You can also select the “Disable Search Engine Visibility” box to stop it from appearing in search results.
Finally, click the “Create Staging” button.
A progress bar will appear as the staging site is created. Once completed, you will get the links to access the copied site and its admin area.
Note: The login details will be the same as your main site’s admin account.
Your Staging Site is separate from your main site, so any changes you make on one will not be reflected on the other.
The Staging Site will remain active until your production site has an active plan, as they share the same storage split.
Once you are satisfied with your changes, you can publish your website.
Any additional changes you make to your published website will not be duplicated on the Staging Site.
Please delete the original Staging Site if you have made changes to the live site and published them, as they will not be included.
Your Staging Site can be found in your site list via “Settings”, followed by “Hosting Configuration” and “Manage Staging Site”, as we explained above.
Additional Information:
What is a WordPress Staging Site?
A WordPress Staging Site is a clone of your live website. The Staging Site will have the same look, layout, and functionality; the only difference is that it’s a space where you can experiment. For example, you can install new plugins, try new code, change Themes, and restore backups.
When you set up a Staging environment, the following site-specific data will be cloned to your Staging Site, giving you a replica of your original website:
- Posts
- Pages
- Themes
- Plugins
- Images & Videos
- Users
- Databases.
What is a WordPress Staging Site for?
Setting up a Staging Site for your WordPress website is a smart move. It allows you to test changes, plugins, and Themes without anything happening to your live site. The benefit is that if there are problems, your main site continues as normal.
Before updating anything on your live site, you can test to see if any are any incompatible plugins and Themes and identify conflicts or errors. You can also assess how changes and plugin updates affect your site’s speed and performance.
The Staging Site also offers a way to troubleshoot problems on your live site, for example, a White Screen error, by creating a copy to find and fix the issue. Once you have corrected the problem, you can fix it on the backend of your original site or publish the staging site as your new live site.
This site can also serve as an additional backup. If your live site crashes or faces issues, you have a recent copy you can restore from, if you haven’t deleted it.
Login to Hosted.com Account
1. Go to the Hosted.com Login website page.
2. Enter your Email and Password and click the “Sign In” button.
Access WordPress via Your Hosted.com Account
3. You will see the Hosted.com Dashboard, displaying the Manage Account menu on the left and your Account Information, Account Overview on the right and Open Support Tickets below.
4. Click the “Manage Service” dropdown and select your hosting package – our example uses the WordPress Hosting plan. The hosting window will open and you will see Product Information and Quick Manage on the right.
5. Click on the WordPress icon under the Quick Manage section.
Access WordPress via cPanel
3. You will see the Hosted.com Dashboard, displaying the Manage Account menu on the left and your Account Information, Account Overview and Open Support Tickets on the right.
4. Click on “Manage Services” to view the sub-dropdown menu and select the hosting package for the domain you want to work with – in our example we are using WordPress Hosting.
5. Click the “Manage” button to the right of the domain name you want to access.
6. The display will now show Product Information, Quick Manage, Resource Usage and Site Statistics for that domain name.
7. Under “Product Information”, scroll down to “Control Panel”, which will display cPanel to the right, and click on the “Login” button.
8. The cPanel Dashboard will now be displayed.
9. Scroll down until you get to “Popular Applications”, click on the WordPress icon.
10. The WordPress Dashboard will now be displayed.
Access WordPress via cPanel Online
1. Visit your cPanel URL, either supplied to you through your web host or attained through other sign-up methods.
2. Enter your Username
3. Then enter your Password and click “Log in”.
4. Scroll down until you get to “Popular Applications”, click on the WordPress icon.
