Staging is a complete copy of your live site at an address only you use. You break things there instead of in front of your customers. It is included on Pro, Premium and Platinum.
Creating a staging site
- Open the site in your panel.
- Choose Create staging.
- Wait a moment. We copy the files and the database into a separate environment with its own address.
The staging copy is not indexed by search engines and does not affect your live site in any way.
What staging is for
- Plugin and theme updates. Update on staging, click through the site, then apply to live.
- A WordPress core upgrade.
- A redesign, or a new page template.
- Testing a change to a checkout flow without risking real orders.
Pushing changes live
When you are happy, push from staging to live from the same page. You choose what goes:
- Files only. Right for a theme, template or plugin change. Your live content and orders are untouched.
- Files and database. Right for a redesign where the content changed too. This replaces your live database, so any orders, comments or posts created on live since you made the staging copy will be lost.
Read that second option twice before you use it on a shop.
The safe pattern for a busy site
- Create staging.
- Change files only, not content.
- Push files only to live.
- Make your content changes directly on live.
That way you never have to overwrite a live database.
Refreshing staging
Staging drifts from live as your live site keeps taking orders and comments. Delete the staging copy and create a fresh one whenever you start a new piece of work.
Deleting staging
Delete it when you are done. It uses your plan's storage while it exists.
On Starter
Staging is not part of the Starter plan. If you regularly update a WordPress site, Pro pays for itself the first time it prevents a broken update.
The assistant in your control panel can see your actual account and answer about your sites, your plan and your usage. For anything else, email [email protected] and a person will answer.