Is there another option besides “preview” if I want to change themes?

  • Unknown's avatar
    camelabooking · Member ·

    I have a Premier Paid Account and I am NOT going to upgrade to business or commercial…

    I want to rebuild my site with a new theme and then launch the new site once it’s ready. Right now if I choose the theme to rebuild my site, that will be live for all of my clients before it’s done. It’s going to take me many days to rebuild and redesign my site.

    WordPress does not give me an option to rebuild without switching over to the new theme, except by using “preview” which is clunky, taking me a long time to rebuild and if I have to restart my computer, I lose everything I worked on. I’ve lost my work 3 times now.

    Is there a draft mode or another way to rebuild a site with a new theme while the old theme is still live? Or is there a “under construction” splash page we can put up until my new website/theme is ready to launch?

  • staff-davidw · Staff ·

    You can build your new design without affecting your live site by creating a separate site with a new Premium plan (you can purchase a monthly plan just for a month or so). Once you’ve rebuilt the new site and are ready to launch, you can map your domain to the new site (you can also contact us again and we can move the current Premium plan to the new site) This way, your current site remains live for your visitors while you work on your redesign.

    An alternative option is using the “coming soon” mode: https://wordpress.com/support/privacy-settings/display-a-coming-soon-page/
    This will put your current site ‘offline’ and allow you to edit the site without it being viewable to the public. That would mean your site would not be accessible for the duration of this time, however.

    Higher plans such as the Business plan allow access to a Staging Site which can run along site your live site, but if you want to keep on your current plan, I would recommend one of the above steps.

    Please let us know if you need guidance or need any additional help with the process.

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