Lost trying to figure out staging

  • I am new to WP and have suddenly realized I need to move to a staging environment for development, testing, etc to STOP breaking my live website

    My lousy host recommended i use the script in Softaculous located in the cPanel. This works ok but I discovered that I had to change things like rankmath to NOT do sitemaps and to set the discourage option in the WP Dashboard, out also messed up the Wordfence install so I have to always be reoptimizing. Problem there is any changes I do there get pushed to the live site when I push to live so I have to make sure to go back and change everything back to normal for the Live site. Clearly not what I want.

    My other option is to use the (in beta) staging link in their control panel. I must say I did not play with it much as I discovered once I went to the staging site and tried to switch back to production you cannot. Called the host and they said “yes that is a bug, we recommend you not use it as it is still a beta and we cannot guarantee operation, use at your own risk”. Not an option.

    I did look at updraftPus’s cloning but I just do not get it or the token method they use to charging. It looks like I could end up spending a fortune if I am making minor edits them pushing to live. Again, not an option.

    I. have started looking at staging plugins and it is frying my brain. I want a staging solution that does not break my very limited bank account (I am retired on a fixed income). I want to be able to:

    1. Make sure the staging site is not visible to the search engines for indexing
    2. I want the staging site secure
    3. Be able to set wordfence, rankmath, and updraftPlus to work in staging but when I push to live not overwrite the live configuration for wordfence, rankmath, and updraftPlus.
    4. Be able to restore live site if things go wrong.
    5. Have staging a staging plugin that is easy to use and understand. Remeber I am a rookie and easily confused. I cannot afford to crash my site anymore, it is now live.

    Can anyone make recommendations or point me to a resource that clearly shows the comparisons to staging plugins. I know this has to be easy but I have had no luck and do not want to just start downloading plugins and truing then go through the deletion because they either do not work or are to confusing to use. Please remember i am just a small guy with limited skills and on a limited budget trying to get things going while being protected from disasters.

    I appreciate an input that will guide me in the right direction. Thanks team!!

    • This topic was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Jan Dembowski. Reason: Moved to Fixing WordPress, this is not an Everything else WordPress topic
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  • I use blogvault for backup and on demand staging site for my clients

    Thread Starter nstokes6971

    (@nstokes6971)

    thanks for he feedback, in reviewing BlogVault I see it does many things I really like for backup, staging, and if needed site migration.

    You may have the answer I need? I am currently on a shared account (don’t whack me, just getting started) where I have a primary domain with 4 add-on subdomains. Each subdomain is of course their own WP site with their own DNS pointers.

    In looking at what it takes to setup SFTP on this host they say that for a shared account like mine can only have one SFTP account like I do for my cpanel.

    Would I be able to license the primary WP domain and each individual WP subdomain then use the one SFTP on each? By doing so would it allow full features for each subdomain, right?

    I don’t want to start a trial if I would not be able to setup BlogVault to work on each subdomain as well as my primary since I am using a shared account where I can have unlimited subdomains.

    Appreciate any feedback, thanks

    for the web hosting, you should be able to create FTP account for each subdomain(sub directory).

    blogvault treat each sub domain as individual site

    Please contact blogvault support if you have more questions

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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