24.6 Using the Staging Environment

Purpose:

A staging site is a private clone (copy) of your live website, hosted on a separate, temporary URL. It provides a safe environment where you can test major updates (WordPress core, themes, plugins), try out new designs, experiment with code changes, or troubleshoot issues without affecting your live, public-facing website. This is an essential tool for safe website maintenance.

  • Creating a Staging Site:
    1. Navigate to Sites → WordPress → Select your Site.
    2. Look for a Staging tab or section within the site's management dashboard.
    3. Click Create Staging Environment or Create Staging Site.
    4. The system will clone your live site's files and database to a staging area. This process might take several minutes depending on the size of your site.
    5. Once complete, you'll be provided with a unique staging URL (e.g., staging-yoursite.somehostingdomain.com) and potentially separate login credentials or access methods for the staging site's WordPress admin.
  • Testing on Staging: Access the staging site via its unique URL. Log in to its /wp-admin. Perform your updates, install new plugins/themes, make design changes, or test fixes freely. Changes made here do NOT affect your live site. Test thoroughly to ensure everything works as expected.
  • Pushing Changes to Live (CRUCIAL Step - Use Carefully): Once you have thoroughly tested your changes on the staging site and confirmed everything is working correctly:
    1. Go back to the Staging section within your site's management dashboard in Close Master.
    2. Look for an option like Publish to Live, Deploy Staging to Live, or Push to Live.
    3. READ WARNINGS CAREFULLY! This action will overwrite your entire live website (files and database) with the current contents of the staging site. Any changes made *only* on the live site since the staging site was created will be lost.
    4. Ensure you have a recent backup of your live site before proceeding (the hosting might create one automatically, but verify).
    5. Confirm the action, often by typing the site name or clicking multiple confirmations.
    6. The system copies the staging site over the live site. Verify the live site functions correctly after the push.
  • Refreshing or Deleting Staging:
    • If your live site has changed significantly since you created the staging site, you might want to Delete the current staging environment and Create a new one to get the latest live content for testing.
    • Delete the staging environment when your testing is complete to conserve server resources.

Using staging environments is a professional best practice for minimizing downtime and avoiding issues on your live website during updates or development.