Connecting exiting site to WordPress
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Hi,
I am currently hosting my website with another host, and was wondering if it could be possible to connect my website to WordPress, without incurring additional costs?I would like to manage my site from a central point and have the possibility to test website features and templates in a none live environment (like a demon website), how would one be able to do this?
Thanks
RegardsI don’t have a site with WordPress.com yet
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Hi there,
I’m afraid I’m not completely clear on what you’d like to do.
What is your current website’s URL? And is it built with the open source WordPress software, or using a different content management system/website building platform?
Do you just want to link your site to your WordPress.com username account, or do you want to convert your site to run on WordPress instead of whatever system you’re currently using?
The forum you’re posting in now is for the hosting provider, WordPress.com. We’re not the same thing as the open source WordPress software.
It’s possible to link a site hosted elsewhere to a WordPress.com account, but to do that, the site at the other host must also be built using the WordPress software. Then you create a link between the self-hosted site, and your WordPress.com account, using the Jetpack plugin. That will allow you to manage certain aspects of your site from your WordPress.com account.
If your current site is not built using WordPress, but you want to convert it into a WordPress site, then you’ll want the open source software made on WordPress.org. You’ll need to install a copy of that software on your server at your hosting provider, and then migrate your content across to that new site. You’ll need to work directly with your host to do this, and it’s not something we can help with from our end.
I would like to manage my site from a central point and have the possibility to test website features and templates in a none live environment (like a demon website), how would one be able to do this?
This is commonly referred to as having a staging environment. There’s different ways to do this in WordPress, but again, this will only really help you if your site is already running on the WordPress software.
The first option is to install a copy of WordPress locally on your computer. You’ll need to download special software for this, that creates a virtual server on your computer. Then you can install WordPress, build a site, and once you’re ready, upload the local site’s files to your hosting provider’s servers via FTP.
https://wordpress.org/support/article/installing-wordpress-on-your-own-computer/
The second option is an online staging site, and this depends on your host: some hosts offer a staging environment that’s linked to your live site, and you can seamlessly push changes from your staging site to the production site via your hosting control panel. Or if you have a hosting plan that allows for multiple WordPress installations, you can clone your production site to create a staging site, and then transfer files from staging to production via FTP. You’ll need to chat with your host regarding what they offer or recommend in this regard.
Here on WordPress.com we don’t offer a staging environment, but you can create as many free sites in a WordPress.com account as you want. So what I do here is I have a free site set to private that contains some content I imported from my actual site. Then I test out changes on the private site, and copy them over to my actual site manually once I’m happy. But this only applies if you’re hosting your site with us, using our modified version of WordPress. If you want to use the open source version of WordPress at another host, you’ll be using one of the other two options I explained above.
This is a lot of info, so let me know if anything is unclear or if you have any other questions.
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