Beta site

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  fullertonfirstchristian · Member · May 28, 2015 at 9:50 pm

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  Hi, we want to change the design of our website — but still have the existing version up & running as we do so. Is it possible to have a ‘beta’ site with the new design hidden from view as we work on it?

  Thanks!

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  shawnajroberts · Member · May 28, 2015 at 11:20 pm

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  Hi there! We don’t currently have a way for your to do this, but I’ll log the suggestion for our developers!

  The closest option we have for you is to create another free WordPress.com site to use as a private ‘staging’ site.

  https://signup.wordpress.com/signup/

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  fullertonfirstchristian · Member · Jun 6, 2015 at 4:18 am

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  Thanks for the info, Shawna.

  If I did create a new “staging” website and we then wanted to use it as our new current church website, would I be able to use our church URL on the site to make it active?

  Lisa

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  jeremeylduvall · Member · Jun 6, 2015 at 2:55 pm

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  Hi Lisa!

  If I understand correctly, you’re looking to setup a new site for staging like fulltertonfirstchristianstaging.wordpress.com. Then, once that is setup, you would like to use your domain fullertonfirstchristian.org on that site. Correct?

  We could definitely do that. Once you setup the new site and have it looking the way you want, we would just move the domain and Premium bundle from fulltertonfirstchristian.wordpress.com to the new site. The only tricky piece to the puzzle would be regarding posts. For example, if you previously posted the following URL on your Facebook to share a post:

  http://fullertonfirstchristian.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/ever-wonder-what-our-overseas-missionaries-do/

  Readers would still land on your old site versus your new site. Does that make sense?

  Instead of setting up the new site and then transferring everything over, I would advise the following:

  1. Setup a new “test” site that you can experiment with

  2. Get the new site looking just the way you want it

  3. Implement the new design on your current site during an off time (at night or early morning for example).

  This way, you minimize the transition time since you know exactly how you want to set the site up (you’ve already done it on your test), and you don’t have to worry about moving the domain around or worrying about old posts. Would that work?