how do i correctly move a testing WP site??

  • Hello all,

    I hope you are all doing great!

    I am building a new WP site for a client who I previously built a static site for.

    She wants her new site on the same domain name and hosting as her current static site.

    I don’t want to build the new site “live” so I would like to build it on my own personal “testing” domain and hosting (both different from hers), so she can preview my progress.

    My Questions:
    When it is time to move the new WP site to her current domain and hosting, how do I correctly do this? Does everyone work this way with WordPress when building a testing site (i.e. build a testing site, then move all the files & the database as well)?

    I’ve tried this before unsuccessfully, so I am not sure where I went wrong the last time.

    Any help will be very appreciated as always. And as I learn more, I promise to contribute back to this board to other newcomers as payback. Thanks!!!!

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
  • Moderator cubecolour

    (@numeeja)

    The basics of the system I have are:

    1.) Export the database on the test version & make a copy of the files
    2.) Import the database & upload the copy of the files to the real site
    3.) Edit the wp-config to reflect the db connection details
    4.) Use the Interconnect/it search & replace tool to change all instances of the original url to the new url

    Thread Starter rhender

    (@rhender)

    CubeColour,

    Thanks man. I appreciate it.

    I’m not totally sure how to use the interconnect/it search and replace tool…. but I will follow that link and read up on it.

    Other than that, I think it all makes pretty good sense to me.

    Very cool, much appreciated.

    Moderator cubecolour

    (@numeeja)

    The S&R tool can be a bit daunting & there are about warnings on using it, but as long as you’re only using it on a copy of a database that exists elsewhere, it wouldn’t matter it it goes screwy. If you prefer not to use it, you could do a search & replace on your database export file in a text editor instead, but anything serialized will probably get munged – text widgets, plugin settings etc. Not the end of the world – you’d just have to go through the site and recreate a few things

    I have an old laptop that I use my a dev server. I have the script on there as part of my toolkit, so I just load up the export into an empty db, run the script and do a new export before importing into the new db.

    Thread Starter rhender

    (@rhender)

    I’m hoping that CUBECOLOUR will see this new post…

    but anyone can respond if they can help me.

    So, Cubecolour….

    I am using your method that you laid out above in 4 clear steps to move a site.

    My questions now are…

    1. When I upload the copy of the files to the new site, will I need to reinstall WordPress with those files uploaded – go through initial installation process again? – sorry, I know that may be an obvious answer to some… but I’m still kind of new to WP.

    2. I am doing this process, with a current live site at the moment. Will it affect the current live site (i.e. the old site) if I do it this way? I need the current site to remain unaffected.

    3. And lastly (for now), do I need to edit the wp-config file after I upload the copy of the files… or does it matter if I do that before? Those settings will change for my new Database.

    Thanks again, I hope to hear from you.

    Tanks for that ?? I have the same problem at my site but now it’s done

    Thread Starter rhender

    (@rhender)

    Great I’m glad it helped you out. Now hopefully I can get over this hump with just a little bit more help.

    Thread Starter rhender

    (@rhender)

    Ok, so now, if anyone can help me that would be great.

    I imported the .sql file from the old site, into the empty database for my new site.

    I went back to the old site to see if it had affected anything by doing that.

    The old site won’t even load now, and I can’t connect to the server via FTP or through mysql.domain.com

    So… I’m kind of in trouble now. Did my importing of that database into the new database make my old site crash???

    Ahhh!!!! what a bitch.

    And I have now deleted the database on the new site, in an attempt to get the old site to work again… thinking that creating the new database is what screwed up the old site.

    I can’t believe this happened again. Good God.

    Thread Starter rhender

    (@rhender)

    …well the site is fine again.

    I guess for some reason, when I imported the database into the new site’s database, it froze the old site up (when you went to the old site it would just show the progress circle thing… and nothing would load on the page).

    So, that was scary but I’m glad the old site decided to come back up.

    I wonder if the old site started to work again, because I deleted the database on the new site?

    So, now my main question is…

    Will the old site be frozen up, until I complete the search and replace script on the database?? That is what it seems like to me now.

    Thread Starter rhender

    (@rhender)

    Well, my dramas finally come to an end.

    I want to thank CubeColour for laying it out in simple terms for me.

    In the end, that is the method that I used to set my new site up.

    My old site is working fine, and I chose to block the search engines on my new site, until it is fully developed.

    Now, I just need to continue to learn how to make the transition from one site to the next, easy for Google to pick up on, so that there is no downtime with Google indexing the pages either. … or loosing any page rank that the site has for that matter.

    Any tips on that would be appreciated.

    But thanks to CubeColour for laying this one out for me. I’m happy to have finally made it out of the darkness ?? … for now at least.

    CASE CLOSED!

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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