Question about creating a new site using Wordpress on a domain currently in use

spudbynight · 27 Jan 2015 at 11:27

I am putting together a new website for someone. They currently have an existing website in place but it is well past a need for change.

I am happy enough desiging a website using Wordpress. I am not a professional web designer (I am doing this for free) and I have a small question.

How do I go about designing the wordpress site without it replacing the current live website. Once it is complete, how do I then move the site to replace the old site?

touch · 27 Jan 2015 at 11:55

Either:
1- build it on another domain and use a clone or move plugin when it's time to go live
2- build it on your local machine with the domain in your hosts file to point to localhost so you can build the site with all the correct domain details already in place and make a direct copy of the files+database to the Web server.

inogen · 27 Jan 2015 at 12:08

Create some subdomains. When I do this kind of thing I usually create three. alpha, beta and old. Alpha to develop on, beta to show the client and old to put the old site on before putting the new site live.

spudbynight · 27 Jan 2015 at 17:38

OK - I will look into subdomains.

Thanks

inogen · 27 Jan 2015 at 17:42

spudbynight said:
OK - I will look into subdomains.

Thanks

Aye, it's the way to do it. Developing locally (or on a different server) is often problematic because of differences. With most hosting platforms, cloning isn't an option.

Far easier to use subdomains.

mtalk · 28 Jan 2015 at 10:49

As suggested by touch , I will also recommend to go with second option
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build it on your local machine with the domain in your hosts file to point to localhost so you can build the site with all the correct domain details already in place and make a direct copy of the files+database to the Web server.

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In this you need not change anything on the site when you update it on live server.

James07 · 30 Jan 2015 at 02:10

Id create a sub folder on the ftp with a default domain thats basically offline until youre ready to transfer the domain name over.

antijoke · 30 Jan 2015 at 11:47

Do what touch says.

You do not want to have to go through the headache that is shifting a wordpress install to another location.

There are tools available to help you if that's the path you've gone down, but if it's not been started do it that way.

spudbynight · 31 Jan 2015 at 14:09

I'm working in OSX for development. Can anyone give me an idiots run through for what I need to do with my hosts file to point it at a local folder for development?

antijoke · 31 Jan 2015 at 19:58

Ignore, not sure on how it works for Mac.

touch · 31 Jan 2015 at 20:16

Looks like it works pretty much the same as windows:
1- Find the hosts file (/private/etc/hosts)
2- Copy to desktop
3- Open in editor, add line at the end "127.0.0.1 www.example.com" where example is the name of your domain
4- Copy back to original directory, overwrite existing file

Test it by going to the domain in your browser. It should now direct you to your own laptop rather than the webserver for that site. You'll probably see some kind of error message as you wont have any webserver running on your laptop yet.

spudbynight · 31 Jan 2015 at 23:00

I can handle the hosts side of things.

I just need to now figure out the following

1. How to setup a local web server. I think OS X includes one.
2. How to setup a local SQL server.

With that in mind, will setting up on a subdomain and then migrating the wordpress installation later be less troublesome?

touch · 2 Feb 2015 at 18:34

Have a look at MAMP. It installs everything you need for a webserver.
setting it up locally might involve a bit more work up front but developing locally is a little easier when going live.
Really, there isn't much difference between options (Although, some housing packages only include 1 database). It's not too difficult to configure a mamp server and it's not too difficult to go into the database admin and change the urls if you develop on a different address.

kitkat9933 · 2 Feb 2015 at 19:37

As above install MAMP. MAMP Pro is a good purchase as well for £30. It's as simple as installing it and pointing it to your webroot.