Jenny Hansen asked 6 years ago
My friend has a website that is outdated. She is hoping I can clean it up and modernize her site. How do I do so without losing all of her existing content on her site?
1 Answers
Shawn Hesketh answered 6 years ago
Excellent question, Jenny, and one that's come up before in this forum.
The best way to work on an existing WordPress website without affecting the live site is to use a staging server.
A staging server allows you to create an exact copy of the site, albeit with a private web address that is only known and visible to you. Then, you can make any changes you like, and when you’re happy with those changes, publish the staging version back to your live server.
This is one of many reasons we recommend Managed WordPress hosting over cheap, shared hosting. The Managed WordPress hosts we recommend include a staging server at no additional cost: https://wp101.com/resources/#managed-wordpress-hosting
If you’re not able to upgrade your plan and don’t want to migrate your site to a managed WordPress host, you might check out WP Stagecoach — a service that allows you to create a staging server that is completely independent of your web host.
Hope this helps!