Doc Summary
Sites on our WordPress-optimised platform have access to a full staging environment. Staging allows you to make a clone of a live WordPress site on a staging server in moments. You can then make changes without affecting the live site.
What is a WP staging site and what is it used for?
A WordPress staging site is a clone of your live website to test changes, try out plugins, themes and everything else before making them live. Staging sites help you catch errors, so you don’t end up breaking your live website.
You can install WordPress locally on your Windows or Mac machine to test changes or see if a plugin works and when finished and satisfied with the updates, simply upload those changes from localhost to live server.
One problem, and it can be a major issue, with this approach is that something that worked on your localhost does not always mean it work on the live server
Often localhost and live hosting servers are not running the same environment.
A WordPress staging site lives on your web hosting server, all those errors can be prevented because it runs the same server configuration as your live site.
Now have a look how to use the staging environment on our optimised WordPress platform.
To make use of the staging environment, you’ll need to make sure the site is hosted on our optimised WordPress platform.
To use the WordPress staging environment:
- Login to MyWebHostsOnline, head to Manage Hosting and select Manage on the WordPress package you want to use staging for.
- In the WordPress Tools section, select Staging.
- Select Create Staging Site.
- Your current site will then be cloned onto a staging subdomain, i.e. staging.yourdomain.com. This will take a few minutes to complete.
- Once your site has cloned onto the staging subdomain, you will now have access to edit the staging site without having an impact on the live site.
- To view the staging site, select Visit Staging.
To edit the staging site files, you can use either the File Manager or FTP. A newly created staging_html directory will have been created, this is where the cloned files are stored and where you need to go to edit any site files.You can edit the site as normal through WordPress Admin.
To edit the database, you can head to MySQL Databases and you will see a newly created SCSTAGING database which you can simply login to via phpMyAdmin. The site and home URL for the WordPress site will be prefixed with the staging. subdomain.
To push your staging site changes to your live site:
- Head to the WordPress Staging icon.
- Select the checkbox next to ‘I can confirm this will overwrite my existing, live website data’.
- Select Clone into live. This will take a few minutes to complete.
Once completed, any changes you’ve made to the staging site will have been replicated onto the live version of your site.
