A staging site is a complete copy of your live website that you can use to test changes before making them live. It is an essential tool for website developers and owners who want to ensure that their changes will not break their live site.
Bluehost is a popular web hosting provider with a staging site feature on its Business Pro plan. This article will show you how to use the Bluehost staging site to test your website changes.
Does Bluehost Offer A Staging Site
Yes, Bluehost offers a staging site. A staging site is a replica of your live website that you can use to test changes before publishing them to your live website.
This can help you avoid making mistakes that could negatively impact your website’s performance or SEO ranking.
To create a staging site, you’ll need to create a copy of your website using Bluehost’s backup and restore tool. Once the copy is created, you can log in to the staging site and make changes as needed.
When you’re finished testing, you can publish the changes to your live website with just a few clicks.
How to Use Bluehost Staging Site
First, you need to log in to your Bluehost account and go to My Sites » Manage Site from the left sidebar.
On the next page, scroll down to the Tools section and click on the Staging icon.
You will be redirected to the Bluehost staging site page where you need to enter a name for your staging site and click on the Create Site button.
Bluehost will now create a complete copy of your live site and add it to your staging site URL.
For example, if your live site is example.com then your staging site would be like stage-example.com. Once the process is finished, you will see a success message like this:
Congratulations! Your new WordPress installation on stage-example.com is ready!
Now that your staging site is ready, you can make any changes you want without affecting your live site.
When you are satisfied with the changes, you can push them live by clicking on the Push To Live button from the staging dashboard.
Clicking on this button will overwrite your existing WordPress files and database with the ones from your staging site.
So make sure that you take a backup of your live WordPress site before pushing changes from your staging environment.
We hope this article helped you learn how to use the Bluehost staging site for testing WordPress changes. You may also want to see our list of the most useful developer tools for WordPress professionals and agencies.
The Importance of a Staging Site
If you’re a website owner or developer, you know how important it is to have a staging site.
A staging site is basically a replica of your live website where you can test out changes before implementing them on your actual site.
This is essential for experimentation and development, as well as for making sure that any changes you make don’t break your site.
Advantages of Third-Party Staging Sites
There are a few advantages to using third-party tools for your staging site if your hosting provider doesn’t offer one. First of all, you have more control over the environment.
You can choose which plugins and themes to install, as well as which settings to use. This is helpful if you want to replicate your live environment as closely as possible.
Secondly, it’s easier to transfer changes from the staging site to the live site.
With most hosting providers, you need to manually export your changes and then import them onto the live site. With a third-party tool, you can usually just push a button and the changes will be transferred automatically.
Disadvantages of Third-Party Staging Sites
While there are some advantages to using third-party staging sites, there are also some disadvantages.
First of all, they can be more expensive than using a hosting provider’s staging site (if one is offered).
Secondly, they can be less convenient because you need to set up and maintain the environment yourself. Finally, they might not offer all of the features that a hosting provider’s staging site would offer.
Conclusion
A staging site is an exact copy of your live website that allows you to test out changes before making them public.
It’s an essential tool for website developers and owners who want to avoid breaking their live website while making updates. Bluehost offers a staging feature on its Business Pro plan–in this article, we’ve outlined how easy it is to use it!
There are some advantages to using third-party tools for your staging needs.
These include having more control over the environment and being able to easily transfer changes from the staging site to the live site.
However, there are also some disadvantages to consider, such as potential expense and lack of features compared to what Hosting providers might offer.
READ MORE: Does Bluehost have a website builder?