Copying existing word press site to use as a sandbox to create another?

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  coleendevol · Member · Sep 13, 2015 at 7:37 pm

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  Hi,

  I just created a free wordpress account in hopes of designing my own version of my site with themes and played around with writing a blog post on it, HOWEVER I already have a wordpress hosted site that a developer built (justfeelgood.com) and am wondering how I can work on my own version in a sandbox (don’t want to mess up my existing site). What’s the best way to do this, so that if I do make a site that I love I can make it go live with my existing URL (justfeelgood.com).

  Thank you for your time!

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

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  dreamingbetter · Member · Sep 13, 2015 at 9:24 pm

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  Hi coleendevol,

  WordPress.org and WordPress.com are actually fairly different… I’ve worked with both. There is no easy way to transfer a WordPress.com site to a WordPress.org one. I would recommend asking your developer to help you with this. If both WordPress.org sites were on the same server, it shouldn’t be too difficult to switch them.

  Keep in mind that you will lose all the content on your existing site if you replace it with another one. If you’re just looking to create a new theme, but keep the existing content on your site, then it shouldn’t be that difficult for a developer to copy a theme over either.

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  dreamingbetter · Member · Sep 13, 2015 at 9:31 pm

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  If you want to create a whole new site on WordPress.com, and simply have your existing domain name point to it here, that isn’t too difficult.

  Once you have your new site set up and ready to go, with the content and design that you want, simply have your domain name provider point your existing domain to your WordPress.com account. They just need to change the nameservers to the WordPress.com ones.

  You will need to purchase the domain name upgrade from WordPress.com for your account, before you have the domain name provider change anything. If you have email set up with your domain, you may need to make some more changes to keep it working.

  WordPress.com accounts have some restrictions that self-hosted WordPress.org sites do not. For instance, WordPress.com accounts do not allow you to put ads on your site, nor are you allowed to use it for ecommerce unless you use the paid upgrades from WordPress.com. If you’re simply using it as an information site, then it should be fine for your needs.