I am re-designing a website that already exists on network solutions. I would like to keep the same domain for the new site but I am going to use wordpress through network solutions.
How would I install Wordpress without interrupting the current site?
Then once the new website is done, I would need to replace it with the existing site without interrupting the file structure to keep all images and links I've coded into the "staging" instance?
What people usually do in this case is create a subdomain where the development version of the site will live (eg. https://staging.example.com or https://dev.example.com) so both sites can coexist without affecting one another.
Another approach would be to create a folder in the main domain (eg. https://www.example.com/staging/ or https://www.example.com/dev/) and do all the work there. Personally I don't use this approach, I prefer the one mentioned above the best as it keeps both sites completely separated.
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Building a new website without affecting the current website (wordpress) until finished? Concerned about google web crawling, seo, ssl certificates, wordpress config, etc.
I was advised to create a new subdomain and build the new website there but I have concerns about this approach. After your build your new site (wordpress) on the newly created subdomain how do you redirect the main domain to that subdomain and not break google's web crawling or SSL certificates or anything else?
Building and testing separately from the current site is always the best approach. A separate development environment is always preferable, if possible. This also allows you to test upgrades and changes in future before making them on the live site and risking an error.
Whether you have a separate environment or not, there are 2 ways you can build the site separately from the current site:
1. Build in a separate location and then migrate the installation to the current hosting when its ready.
This is a common approach but it is quite tricky if you try to do it manually - a common question here is how to fix a broken site after a manual migration.
My recommendation is to use a plugin that is designed to do it all for you. You can have the site moved and running perfectly in minutes without all the hassle. I use the free Duplicator plugin, but there are others.
See how to migrate a Wordpress site in 4 quick & easy steps
2. Build in a subfolder of the current website and switch it to run from the root domain
An alternative option is to build it in a sub folder (a subdomain will not work for this approach). When you're ready, it just takes a few steps to make it run from the root domain without moving anything.
Note that this is then your live site, so you don't have this as a copy for testing upgrades in future.
See how to set up WP that's installed in a subfolder so that it runs from the root domain
Finally - whichever approach you take, if your new urls are different from the current site, you should set up 301 redirects so that both your users and Google can find the corresponding pages and it doesn't hurt your Google ranking.
I am about to develop two websites using wordpress with its multisite functionality. So www.domain1.com and www.domain2.com should point to the same wordpress installation.
The problem I have is that the domains are in productive use, so I cannot make them point somewhere else until development is not finished. I also do not have (and do not want to buy) two unused domains to create the develop setup, so what I would like to know is:
Can I setup subdomains for development and change it into »real« domains later on?
What I would like to know is how to setup the project so that after development is finished, deploying is as painless as possible. The project setup should be close the »real world scenario« it is meant for as possible and I am interested in any kind of hints, advises, links and stuff which guides me setting up the projects.
Which are the pitfalls, where are the »dangerous« parts?
Greetings...
I'd suggest the following route:
Install the Multisite with a sub-domain set-up in a third domain that will be the Main Blog (example.com). In your host, you'll need Wildcard subdomains enabled. Otherwise, each sub-domain has to be manually created. With the wildcard, creating a new site is a matter of clicking Add site.
Then, in /wp-admin/network/sites.php, add two sites: domain1.example.com and domain2.example.com. And develop until they are ready.
You'll need the plugin WordPress MU Domain Mapping to map Top Level Domains to the sub-sites/sub-domains. With it, domain1.example.com will be a fully working domain1.com.
After all this is in place, is just a matter of changing the NameServers to point to the Multisite addresses.
Well, it seems simple but Multisite is not for the faint of the heart. But, one of WordPress.org wizards, Mika Epstein, aka Ipstenu, has two great eBooks that cover lots of ground. Please, check the following Answers in WordPress StackExchange where I cite them.
An interesting case study document.
Plugins of interest:
BackupBuddy: paid solution, although it's considered Beta, exporting and importing sites out and in the networks works ok.
Add Clone Sites for WPMU (batch), in the Repository, although hasn't been updated in a while, still works fine, doesn't exports/imports, but useful for duplicating sites inside the network.
I have a live site built in Wordpress at www.site.com/name1.
The client wants a new theme. I've heavily modified the current theme with custom code and will need to do so with the new theme, all without interrupting the live site, so this wont be as simple as moving the site from one theme to another. Therefore I think I need to create a duplicate of the site at www.site.com/name2 because the content will all be the same. Doing this will give me a place to work on the redesign.
What is the best way to go about doing this? Should I have both use the same DB or not? When I get ready to go live should i simple redirect the domain to /name2 or move everything at /name2 to /name1?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris
If you want the same Data you can use the same DB but there is somes Options Tables dans Meta tables in the Wordpress DB, then if you change parameters on one site it will affect the other.
If you just recode the Theme without touching anything in the configuration you can use the same DB to test your theme with valid datas, but if you think you'll have to change paramaters i would prefer duplicate the Production DB to a Test DB to secure the production Website.
When you go live you'll just have to move your theme to the production website and copy your Option and Meta Tables.
If you're at a point where you're having clients, you should definitely develop locally. This will free you from the trouble of mistakingly messing up the production site.
Install Apache, MySQL and PHP on your own machine.
Copy database and files from production.
Change anything you'd like without exposing it to the Internet.
Upload your new, tailor-suited theme to production when it's ready to go live.
At the moment, I have a wordpress-based site at http://sub.mydomain.com, running for 2 years already.
Now I decided to setup another wordpress site, to be used separately from http://sub.mydomain.com, at http://www.mydomain.com.
My question is would the new setup causes any damage to the site in sub domain? If yes, Could you guide me how to avoid it?
No, they should exist in seperate space on the server's file system so it should be fine. Seperate databases, seperate urls, etc.
edit:
our dev server has dev1.oursite.com, dev2.oursite.com etc on it. Multiple subdomains running wordpress, magento, and drupal with no problems.
markratledge is correct you can install it to the same database with a different prefix, but there is no real benefit to doing so unless your host has limited the number of databases you can have, or you only want one DB to backup. But either method is fine, no conflicts.
You can use the same database, but use a different database table prefix to not overwrite the subdomain's tables. I.e., wpsub_options, etc.
See http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_Multiple_Blogs
In a wordpress installation we want to have our main site, and a staging site separated and different. Where in the admin interface you separate your staging area?
Let's say:
for production you will have: http://www.yourdomain.com/
but for staging we want to have: http://www.yourdomain.com/staging
Staging is the website that will be in production next.
Any ideas?
With Wordpress 3.0+ you might be able to create a network of sites or install multiple sites with an older version of Wordpress. The catch is I don't know of an easy way of moving the staging to production. I'm not entirely sure that will do what you want, but you may want to look into it.
Personally I'd think you'd probably be better off keeping your staging and production sites on 2 different servers and just do a copy over when you move to production.
I don't know of any instant, simple answers, but have you seen this article in the Wordpress support forum? It has some informed discussion and at-least partial solutions:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/one-wpseveral-servers
If your staging site doesn't need any database modification, or custom forms/widgets for the backend, you can create a new theme, and test it in the preview mode. When done, you can switch the theme to the new one!