How to create a staging website

To start, you’ll need to create a subdomain i.e. staging.yourdomain.co.za. 

If you have a Volume Plan or Managed Server, you can set up your subdomain on any package (Basic, Standard, Advanced, Master). 

Alternatively, if you are a Web Hosting customer, you can set up your subdomain as a Multiple domain on your existing hosting package. All our hosting packages come with at least one Multiple domain, and there won’t be an additional hosting fee or domain registration fee. The newly created subdomain will reside inside the public_html/ directory of your main/parent domain. 

Example: public_html/staging.yourdomain.co.za/

File access for the subdomain is done using the FTP user of the main domain.

You can follow this step-by-step guide to create the subdomain: How to order a subdomain

Once the subdomain has been created, you can either:

Option A: Perform a Fresh WordPress Installation

Install a new WordPress instance directly into the subdomain’s directory.

Option B: Duplicate the existing website

You can copy your current site’s files and databases to the subdomain:

• Preferred method: Copy the website and database using a plugin such as Duplicator: Migrate your WordPress website using Duplicator
• Use an FTP client such as FileZilla to upload or download the site files, and use PHPMyAdmin to export the main website database. You may then import it into the subdomain database.

This allows your development team to test changes in a safe environment before applying them to the live site.