Hello

I need to design a website to replace an existing one.

Existing one is live on a .com domain, running wordpress, with theme A.

I need to develop and test the new site, also on wordpress but with a different theme B.

Then I need to make the switch and kill the old one.

Question is, how/where should I host the new one while I’m working on it? Is it possible to have two themes concurrently if I have a subdirectory on the main domain?

Thanks

Bob

You can host 2 websites in the same place (one on a sub domain for your benefit, while you work on it). Then when it comes time to switch, just update the URLs that the sites are associated with on the server.

That’s how I’d normally do it. No downtime at all. Might depend on how your hosting is setup though.

I set up a local host on my computer. Once I’m happy with it upload it all. I did it with zero knowledge and just asking Google for help. You need to get into the database a bit. It has the advantage of no load times etc for fast developing. Also no danger of wrecking everything! I think you can use plugins to handle the upload / download. Maybe vault press or backup buddy.

Disclaimer: I ride bikes for a living and my web skills extend to asking Google for coding help!

Cheers Butcher. That’s what someone else suggested to me too, just not sure if I can have a different theme running on the subdomain?

OK, so it turns out you can run multiple themes using ‘multisite’ or a few other options. A bit complex.

I think I may go the localhost route to begin with.

Cheers all 🙂

B

My experience with WordPress is limited tbh. I’ve heard of multisite before. No actual idea how to use it.

I was thinking an actual second physical site. You should just be able to setup the subdomain to go to a different folder in your hosting package, but may depend on your hosting how you do this.

As above, forget multi site, way too complex. I use a second complete install of WordPress on my server; set up a duplicate db. Then I point a sub domain at the new site. I did once setup a local host server but actually found this more involved. A new install and duplicate db is not too hard with a bit of Google.

tag for later info….. 😈

Create a new wordpress install in a sub directory and go from there. Your hosting provider will probably have a tutorial on how to do this, or there’s plenty of info floating around the web. It’s pretty straight forward.

As has already been said you’ve 2 options, either using a subdomain if your hosting allows multiple db/subdomains or local on your machine using software like MAMP.

Subdomain:
– Backup the live site so you’ve got it should anything go wrong
– Create a folder for your new WP installation (don’t forget to stop search engines indexing this folder)
– Create a new database for the new WP (can be from a backup of the live site but will need the urls updated)
– Add an A Record for your subdomain in your DNS (dev.yourwebsite.co.uk or similar) and link to your new folder
– Install and run WP as normal

When you’re done backup the live site and swap everything over making sure you update the setting in the WP DB if you’re copying that across too.

MAMP follows essentially the same process, I’ve found it a bit more fiddly to get set up but once you’re going is just the same as running a dev site on your server.

Technically, you don’t need a separate database, as you can tell WP to use a prefix on its table names to differentiate them from the main installation, but this makes migrating data between the two sites much harder, so a separate DB is better if you can get it.