Thats it! The site tells the story of life. We’re on Windows 10. I will look out for your tutorial 
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11 Cats to me speaks as heaven.
Going to have it ready by tomorrow I hope… Stay tuned!
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@Zooey In your situation I would probably also focus on backups (including making sure you know how to restore them), and skip the staging site.
For critical sites (i.e. “if this is down for a couple of hours it costs me money”), it is a good idea to set up a test/staging site in order to avoid the risk of any problems or downtime, but it is a good bit more work to do things this way.
As you’ve probably seen, the maintenance of a ClassicPress site does require some good knowledge and understanding of what the software (and its plugins) are actually doing. A good rule of thumb to make this simpler and decrease the time it takes to maintain a site is “the less plugins, the better” - for example, you probably don’t need to worry about deleting revisions or optimizing the site’s database.
We have 4 cats (and a lot of plants). I think 11 would be too much to handle right now!
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OK. I wondered if this was going to be like WordPress forums. It just felt like that. I apologize. Wishing you and everybody else a good day. No need to fret about your impact on me. I won’t return so there won’t be any issues going forward. Peace to all!
Thank you. I’ve done a tiny bit of reading today and came to the same conclusion. My host does not provide a staging environment. I would be reluctant to move because in every other respect they have been excellent and I have masses of space for a very good price. A WP Beginner ARTICLE suggests the manual method is not good at all. The alternative is a plugin that I can’t really afford and that the developers say doesn’t work well with NextGen, or sites like mine with a lot of images. I’m thorough with my BackupBuddy after blogging and adding images. I think all I need to do is an extra back up before updating any plugins
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OK, maybe you can try this path, everything free as beer:
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Create a subdomain staging.yoursite.com. (I hope, your host allows that).
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From your host, create a CP (or WP and then with CP migrate plugin migrate to CP) site on the new domain.
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On both sites install a free WPVivid plugin.
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Use plugin’s free feature, and migrate your website from yoursite.com to staging.yoursite.com. Go to the settings and disable google indexing of staging site.
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Test everything in staging.yoursite.com, if it works - reproduce it on a production site.
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Actually BackupBuddy will do this (if you really think it necessary).
Make a copy of an existing WordPress website using a BackupBuddy backup to easily clone WordPress. Use your copy to quickly spin up a dev site.
One question though @Zooey - where do you store your backups?
Direct migration from one website to another? Without downloading/uploading? I didn’t know that.
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Almost all our work is in house, so having stagings sites for collaboration purposes is not required. Initial work is on local network generally for speed, and then on the hosting. I would almost always put the Word/ClassicPress installation in a folder as it keeps the domain root clear and, as far as I know, has no downsides and less transfer problems as both sites are using the same settings Unless you do something silly and crash the server or your hosting is tight on resources.
If I am doing major changes, updating the site, design theme etc. I would just create a duplicate installation in another folder with site url including the folder: and then when all is ready change the folder in the root .htaccess and the general settings on both installations.
For me this is the most convenient way. 30 secs and the site can be swapped, and swapped back again if needed.
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Ah, no. Looks like that’s not the case. You do need to download it.
BackupBuddy allows you to make a complete backup of the WordPress site, download the zip file of the site and then move the WordPress site to a different host or domain using the ImportBuddy script.
The best side of WPVivid: generate a key on the target side, save it to the site that should be migrated, and press the “Migrate” button. After a minute or so (OK, maybe five) the site will be on the target site as a backup, you can restore it. The simplest migration procedure on the earth, I suspect.
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That’s how UpdraftPlus works too.
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I use Duplicator for basic site moves (or just FTP in if it’s not too big a footprint). Works the same as the others mentioned… package your site, download it, re-upload to wherever, re-install it.
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No, it can’t. We are talking about a free version, because @Zooey asked affordable (free) solution. And not a manual one.
Affordable and free are not the same. UpdraftPlus Premium is $42/yr, and in addition to all the premium features they give you UpdraftClone tokens which allow you to create clone sites instantly on their servers. They can be used as staging sites, something that was discussed in this thread.
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I make backups using BackupBuddy every time I blog or add new images. I then download to my PC. The file is moved to my external drive, which in turn is backed up twice (one of these is off site). I leave the most recent backup within BackupBuddy, which is deleted just before the new one is created.
I’m starting to lose the will to live. I’ve obviously done things in cPanel before like creating a database and MySQL user and setting permissions and user privileges without really understanding what I’m doing. At the moment I’m tempted to give something a whirl, but the various discussions here are possibly more confusing than helpful and I don’t know which plugin to go for. BackupBuddy would be perfect as I’m currently using it, but there seem to be issues I don’t understand.
Most of what I’ve read elsewhere talks about staging, then deleting your entire site before importing the staging site to the server. I don’t want that. I’ve already tweaked the look of my site to my satisfaction and only want to test the plugins. I can visualise an exact replica of my site. I upgrade the plugins one at a time and if they don’t break the test site, then I do the same on the live site. I believe my host allows subdomains. I think I’ll try the suggestion using the WPVivid plugin.
I’m afraid my version of affordable has to be free. My monthly pension of just £500 rarely covers all my vet bills - the pills for just one cat come to £100/month. I feel guilty for having a web site at all.
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I agree! Ignore the distractions.
And no, you don’t want to be creating a staging site and then deleting it. The idea is to have a clone of you site available in perpetuity, where you can test whatever you like before applying to the main site.
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Sorry - the instructions were to tweak the test the site, delete the live site and upload the new copy. Regardless, I’ve fallen at the first hurdle. I created a sub-domain, but following THESE manual instructions I was unable to use the Duplicator plugin. Build Status - Host build interrupt. The default limit for sites was 150Mb and mine is nearly 700Mb. I ran the plugin in spite of the notice. Only Duplicator Pro is capable of migrating sites over 500Mb.
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Ah, all your photos are going to make it a big site in terms of data. That’s what’s causing the problem there. I’ll have a think about how to work around that.
That’s not the way to go. That’s what professional developers do when they build a new site for the first time. That’s not what we’re talking about here. You need a permanent clone to test on. I have one for all my sites.
If your clone is going to be in a subdomain, then you’ll need a means to hide it from public view, so it doesn’t cause confusion with your main site. But that’s easily done by installing the Force Login plugin after you have the clone set up.
Which brings us back to how best to clone your site with all the photos. As I said, I’ll think about this. And, if anyone else has useful suggestions on this, please offer them. But please keep your suggestions focused on this point. We don’t need more distractions!
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