Staging Sites Explained: The Smart Way to Test Website Changes Safely

When you update your website, it’s easy to feel nervous about clicking that ‘Update’ button. What if something breaks? What if visitors see a messy half-finished page? That’s what a staging site comes in.

A staging site is one of the most useful tools you can have when managing your website. It lets you make changes safely, test new ideas and publish updates with confidence.

In this insight, we’ll explain what staging sites are, how they work, and why every website owner should be using one.

What Is a Staging Site?

A staging site is a private copy of your live website where you can test updates, designs and features before they go public. It looks and behaves exactly like your real site, accessed on a different URL and completely isolated from your main website.

Think of it as a rehearsal space for your website. You can experiment, make mistakes and perfect everything before your audience ever sees it.

For example, if you’re thinking of trying a new WordPress theme or adding a new plugin, you can do it on your staging site first. That way if something doesn’t work quite right, it won’t effect your live website at all.

How a Staging Site Works

Our platform makes it simple to manage your website with staging sites. To create a staging site you would typically:

1. Add a new domain or subdomain for staging use
2. Create a copy of your website files to the new staging area
3. Create a copy of your database
4. Update your website configuration file to use the duplicate database
5. Update the URLs in your configuration or database tables to the new URL.

Thankfully, we make this much easier!

To create a staging site at purely.website, simply:

1. Login to your control panel and click Add Website
2. Tick Staging Website and Clone a Website
3. Enter your desired staging domain and select the website to clone.
4. Click Add

Your website is then cloned to a completely new container, the database settings are configured and URLs are all changed to a temporary subdomain for you, complete with SSL!

You can now make your changes, install new plugins, edit your theme and make any other changes. If it breaks? Delete the clone and make a new copy. Is everything working correctly? Push your changes to the live website in an instant:

1. Login to your control panel and click on the staging website
2. Click the Push Live button
3. Select the website you’d like to push to and confirm.

The changes you made on your staging site are now live!

Conclusion

A staging site isn’t just a nice extra, it’s an essential part of maintaining a reliable and professional website. It keeps your live site safe, saves time, and makes every update feel effortless.

If you’re ready to start building, testing, and growing your website, explore our web hosting packages today.