How to Use a WordPress Staging Site (Cloud for WordPress)

Want to redesign your homepage, test a new plugin, or try a different theme without your visitors seeing any of it? Every Cloud for WordPress plan includes a WordPress staging site: a private copy of your live website where you can experiment safely, then publish your changes to the live site in one step. You can select one of the following options to skip to the respective section of the guide:

How to Create a WordPress Staging Site

1
Log in. You should arrive at the Domain Management screen. If you're already logged in, click on ACCOUNT in the top-right corner and select Domain Management.
2
Locate your domain and click the Details button to the far right of the domain name, then select Web Hosting.
3
Scroll to the Staging section and click Create Staging Site.
We make a full copy of your live website, files and database. This usually takes a few minutes, and we'll email you when it's ready. Your staging site gets its own address on stagebun.com (for example, yoursite-abc123xyz.stagebun.com), shown as the Staging URL in the Staging section.

Who Can See Your Staging Site

New staging sites are password protected: visitors see a private-site page and need the staging password to view anything. The password and visibility controls live right in the Staging section:

  • Make Public lets anyone with the URL view your staging site. Handy for sharing a work-in-progress with a client or a friend.
  • Password Protect turns the password page back on.
  • Either way, search engines are asked not to index staging sites.

How to Edit Your Staging Site

Click Staging Admin Login in the Staging section. Your staging site's WordPress dashboard opens in a new tab, already logged in. Anything you change there affects only staging; your live website is untouched.

How to Publish Staging to Your Live Site

When staging looks exactly the way you want, it's one click to make it your real website:

1
In the Staging section, click Publish to Live.
2
We take a fresh backup of your live website first. This replaces any existing on-demand backups, and it makes publishing reversible: if anything looks wrong afterward, restore the backup from the Backups section.
3
Your live website's files and database are replaced with the contents of your staging site. This can take several minutes, and we'll email you when it completes.
Your staging site itself is unchanged by publishing, so you can keep iterating from where you left off.

How to Update Staging from Your Live Site

Starting a new round of changes and want the latest live content to work from? Click Update from Live. Your staging site is replaced with a fresh copy of your current live website. Anything you had changed on staging is lost, so publish first if you want to keep it.

How to Delete Your Staging Site

Click Delete Staging Site in the Staging section. The staging copy is removed entirely; your live website is not affected, and you can create a fresh staging site again any time.

Good to Know

  • Brand new staging sites can take a few minutes to receive their SSL certificate, so your browser may show a security warning at the staging URL at first. Because this is your own freshly created staging site, it's safe to continue past the warning (choose Advanced, then Proceed), or wait a few minutes and refresh.
  • Staging operations copy your entire website, so a site close to its storage limit may not have room to complete them. Freeing up space or moving to a plan with more storage usually clears it up.
  • One staging site per domain, and you can create, publish, update, and delete as often as you like.

Something not working the way this article says it should? Reach out to support@porkbun.com and we'll help you figure out the next steps.

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