Let's say I have an old wordpress site hosted at abc.com, where all the posts are written using visual editor. Now, we have decided to re-purpose old content and write everything in markdown.
Currently, abc.com has considerable amount of traffic as well as good ranking. So we can't modify the content while its live.
To make the process easier we have decided to replicate old site at test.abc.com (on the same server) and modify everything there.
Once everything is up to the mark, we change the document root of the Apache to point to the new Wordpress installation and change the Site Address (URL) in Setting via Dashboard.
So my question, How does this plan look?
Is there any potential pitfall that I need to be aware of ?
Wordpress uses absolute URLs. Therefore you should search and replace every URL in the database from test.abc.com to abc.com before pointing Apache to that directory. Other than that you shouldn't face any problems.
Related
I am trying to set up a development site on the sub-domain development.warriorsliveon.org of warriorsliveon.org.
This is a WordPress site and I copied the plug-ins, themes, and upload folders to the new WordPress installation on the sub-domain. I also copied the database from warriorsliveon.org, did a find and replace of warriorsliveon.org to development.warriorsliveon.org.
When I go to the site , http://development.warriorsliveon.org. it either switches automatically to the follow address, or other times, lets me log into WordPress, but then goes to this address.
http://development.development.www.development.development.warriorsliveon.org/
Anyone have any ideas where I should look to resolve this issue?
I'm happy to post any code, just not sure at this point what would be useful. Any help is appreciated!
Changing the Domain Name that your Wordpress installation runs under is more complicated than just editing one or two files. The best approach is to use a tool like https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/
If you download this free tool and upload to your server then it does a batch find-and-replace across every single table in your Wordpress database.
So, for example, replace http://www.warriorsliveon.org with http://development.warriorsliveon.org
You can do a dry run and it will show you all the replaces that it will make. Once you're happy then click the "live run" button and all the changes are made.
I use this tool all the time when I am moving a site from my local machine to the live server. I also use the exact same approach when migrating a site from http to https
So I built this client a WordPress site and after if was completed and paid for he decided he didn't like his domain name. So he logged into HostGator and then bought/transferred to a new domain.
Then a day later he calls and wonders why his page isn't loading. I'm able to go into the FTP and save all the wp-content and every file that was originally there... My question is how do I get the WordPress site I built onto the new domain name?
I've read all kinds of tutorials about how to export/import but they require the site you're transferring from to be live.. I can't log into the wp-admin portion because it looks like the domain does not exist anymore.
I'm definitely not a back-end guy.. I've build a few sites off line with xamp but i have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to trying to salvage this site. Any help?
WordPress is flexible to handle situations like moving to another server. First back up your WordPress directory, images, plugins, and other files on your site as well as the database. The detailed steps on how to do it is well documented in the website https://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress.
I have recently redesigned a website on wordpress. The redesign is in a subfolder of the domain. When I flipped the new website live by following this tutorial 'Using a pre-existing subdirectory install' - (http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory) everything worked as planned.
However, I am still getting the old site when I navigate to the site using www in the url.
This is a likely problem with your hosting setup. Sounds like you don't have your "A" records setup quite right. Check out this GoDaddy support article for an example. It'll be similar across all hosts.
http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/680/managing-dns-for-your-domain-names
Click on "To Add a Record" and read that. Some hosts will require you to have a "#" and a "www" record to make the site direct to the same place with or without the www.
Also remember that it can take up to any hour for records to get updated.
If all else fails, give your host a call!
Please can someone help me to clarify what issues i might have when the hosting company changes the DNS settings to point away for the current old site (basic html) and to the new WordPress version of the web site?
Both sites are with the same hosting company (I cannot change hosts or hosting names now, my client and the hosting company are long term business partners). I think the server that the current live website is unable to host WordPress. So they set up another server for WordPress and called it something completely different.
Old website address http://www.therealwebsitename.co.uk
Current Location of new WordPress site on hosting server: http://test.blahsystems.co.uk
I think this bit is important!!
The new website is on a Windows Server and uses pretty perma links and also the .html pages plugin. There are also some redirects going to 7 pages on the old site. Everything is currently working ok.
Nest week the hosting company are going to change the DNS settings to point to the new website http://test.blahsystems.co.uk which will hopefully become the new website with the new address of http://www.therealwebsitename.co.uk
The hosting company have also said that I should not have used Permalinks at the moment because once the DNS is pointed to the new site the links will have become permanent (well I had already set up permalinks before they told me). I have not used the full address when making any links within the site.
Will the 'Find & Replace' plug-in on the database still work ok to make any required changes? I am confused as to how the DNS change actually works, will this affect what the links are called in the database or can I still change them from:
http://test.blahsystems.co.uk
to
http://www.therealwebsitename.co.uk
I presume I will need to change the Word Press address and site address in the settings panel to http://www.therealwebsitename.co.uk, once the DNS propagation has finished.
Very long winded I know but any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Ok - I will do the best I can to answer these 8-)
Please can someone help me to clarify what issues i might have when
the hosting company changes the DNS settings to point away for the
current old site (basic html) and to the new WordPress version of the
web site?
When you change your DNS - it's like moving into a new house.
The whole building can change - so it sounds like you're leaving a Windows environment for a Linux environment. Which is cool.
What happened on the old site - should not really impact the new site OTHER than the fact that search engines will still try to remember the old sites structure. It will take time for the search engine to realize that things have changed and that pages are new or missing.
301 Redirection can help with this.
Both sites are with the same hosting company (I cannot change hosts or
hosting names now, my client and the hosting company are long term
business partners). I think the server that the current live website
is unable to host WordPress. So they set up another server for
WordPress and called it something completely different.
Old website address http://www.therealwebsitename.co.uk Current
Location of new WordPress site on hosting server:
http://test.blahsystems.co.uk
I think this bit is important!! The new website is on a Windows Server
and uses pretty perma links and also the .html pages plugin. There are
also some redirects going to 7 pages on the old site. Everything is
currently working ok.
WordPress can use permalinks. If you have moved pages around - like mysite.com/about-us and it's not called mysite.com/about - you will need to create a 301 Redirect to let search engines know.
Nest week the hosting company are going to change the DNS settings to
point to the new website http://test.blahsystems.co.uk which will
hopefully become the new website with the new address of
http://www.therealwebsitename.co.uk
The hosting company have also said that I should not have used
Permalinks at the moment because once the DNS is pointed to the new
site the links will have become permanent (well I had already set up
permalinks before they told me). I have not used the full address when
making any links within the site.
I don't think using permalinks will cause a problem. They aren't "permanent". Nothing is - it's all in a transient state.
Will the 'Find & Replace' plug-in on the database still work ok to
make any required changes? I am confused as to how the DNS change
actually works, will this affect what the links are called in the
database or can I still change them from:
http://test.blahsystems.co.uk to http://www.therealwebsitename.co.uk
Sounds like this plugin is outside of the WordPress install? If so - it should still work.
If it's a plugin your hosting provider is giving you, then there should be no problems.
I presume I will need to change the Word Press address and site
address in the settings panel to http://www.therealwebsitename.co.uk,
once the DNS propagation has finished.
Yes, make sure to update your General Settings prior to the site going live so you don't have any down time.
we have a VPS for new site development, and were planning on using unique IP addresses for each new site/account so that while in development all links, URLs, etc. would be relative to the root (IP address) while in development and not need to change when going live (redirecting domain). But now our host won't allow us to purchase new IP addresses (according to worldwide shortage).
So now all new sites will be located at: http://shared.ip.add.ress/~cpanelaccount/. That means that while in development the sites are not using a root URL as we have been doing.
What is the best workflow while in development for relatively complex CMS solutions where we need to be able to confidently setup and test all links, SEF URLs, plugins, components, etc. without worrying about things getting messed up when the domain is switched (site goes live)?
Do we need to do some sort of global redirect in the .htaccess file?
Any modifications or strategies specific to Wordpress and/or Joomla installs?
THANKS!
I'd have to do an install of the latest WP to be sure, but at least with Joomla it is fairly irrelevant if you install in the root or a subdirectory. In the case of Joomla, there is only one change that needs to be made when moving from a subdirectory to the root. You'd need to change .htaccess to reflect the correct installation directory if you have enabled core SEF. Otherwise, there are no changes that need to be made at all. I am pretty sure WP is just as easy to move, but I'd have to look, it's been a while since I moved a WP site.