At times, you may require cloning the WordPress website. It could be necessary to have a secure environment to test different features, or you’re planning to transfer your website to another hosting provider. But how do you ensure that the process of cloning goes off without an issue?
We’ll inform you about this in this post! For this, we’ll employ a no-cost plugin known as Duplicator. This plugin lets you make fully functional duplicates from your WordPress website and install them on any hosting platform that is compatible with WordPress. Because Duplicator allows you to copy an existing WordPress website, It’s a great solution for creating websites for staging, changing the domain name, or moving to a different hosting provider.
In this post, we’ll delve a bit deeper into the reasons you’d like to duplicate an existing WordPress website. We’ll also show you how to accomplish this in four easy steps, employing Duplicator. Let’s get started with the machine to clone!
There are many reasons to duplicate the WordPress website WordPress website.
Let’s first discuss what ‘cloning’ refers to in this particular context. Cloning your website is different in comparison to backup. Although both processes are similar, they have other goals.
Cloning is the process of creating a functional copy of your website in a specific place. However, backing up your site will result in a “dormant” copy of your website’s files, which you can keep to keep safe.
Cloning your WordPress website can be useful in a variety of ways, such as:
- If you require an interim website, Testing major updates live is risky. So, having a replica of your site lets you test your changes prior to making changes to your live site.
- To facilitate migration: If you’re looking to change your web host and you want to migrate your site, you can download your WordPress website and configure it exactly as it was prior to on the new server.
- Change your domain nameSwitching the domain you use requires “cloning” your site to a different location within your web server.
How do you duplicate the content of a WordPress website with the help of Duplicator (in four steps)
Before you can proceed to the next step, you’ll have to create an account on an alternative web host or create a local server for hosting your site’s copy. But don’t create WordPress there just yet. We’ll handle that as we clone the site.
Step 1 Make a copy of your website and then download it.
The first step is to install and then activate first. You’ll need to start the Duplicator plugin for your existing website. After that, log into your dashboard and locate the brand-new Duplicatortab. Click it and select to select the option to create a new option:
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A Duplicator “package” is two files that set up an identical copy of your site on a brand new server, using a standalone installer. The plugin lets you build as many of these packages as you’d like.
The first step is to enter an identification name to identify. You can also select from the many storage options, choose archives and databases, and alter the settings for the installer. If you are satisfied with your choices, Click on the next button:
At this point, Duplicator will scan your site for any problems:
It’s common to see a warning or two to appear here in accordance with the web hosting provider you use as well as the dimensions of your website. If you get this message, simply look at the box that says Yes. Keep building! on the bottom of the page, then click Build.
The plugin should now have time to run its course. After the process is completed then you can download the two files mentioned earlier:
Download them to your PC like you would any other file. Make an eye on the location they’re saved to. You’ll require them in the near future.
Step 2: Upload a version of your site to your server.
Next, you need to transfer both the files you downloaded onto the new servers. For this, you’ll need to make use of the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client. If you don’t have one in place as of yet, we suggest FileZilla.
You’ll be required to log in to your new server using FTP with the credentials you received when you registered with your web hosting provider:
Once you’re signed in the server, copy both files into the webserver’s directory of origin.directory. This is often referred to as the www directory as well as the public_html directory. After that, you can proceed through the steps to follow.
Step 3: Establish a database for your site’s duplicate
Every WordPress website requires a database to keep its data, and your clone’s is not an exception. In this stage, we’ll create an empty database in which the cloned website will be stored to be ready for step four. This way, you’ll be able to then utilize the Duplicator installer to transfer the content of your database from the original site to the new one.
In the case of a traditional web hosting provider, you’ll have various options for databases on the cPanel dashboard. We’re looking for one referred to as MySQL Databases:
After logging in, look for the area to create a database. Select the name (preferably something that’s related to your site’s content) and then confirm your selection by clicking the Create Database button:
Scroll down until you reach you are in the new usersection. Choose a name for your user, and create an account password, and then confirm your selection. Next, click on the menu that says “Add User” into Database, locate the account you created then select the new database from the drop-down menu.
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