It is possible to clone your WordPress website to another domain or subdomain. This allows you to create a copy of the current website. In this article, we give the example of cloning a website from our test domain cloud86example.com to the subdomain staging.cloud86example.com and the new domain cloud86example.nl.
For illustration purposes, we use the domain cloud86example.com always replace it with your own domain in question. The domain is whatever is behind the @ sign in the mail address (@cloud86example.com) or entered in the url bar in the browser (after https://www. or https://).
Login on Plesk Control Panel
- In My Cloud86 (link), click in the left menu on My Services.
- Click the 3 dots behind the web hosting package you want to see in Plesk and click View Details.
- Under the heading Manage Webhosting (middle of the page), click on Websites & Domains.
- You will now be automatically logged into the Plesk Control Panel.
For the full manual with images, follow Login to Plesk
WordPress website cloning to a (sub)domain
For cloning to a (sub)domain the domain must be present in Plesk. If you have not yet added it in Plesk you can use the guide: Plesk: Adding extra domain (website). If the domain you want to clone to exists, then you can follow these steps to clone the WordPress website:
- In Plesk, make sure the subdomain is created under Websites & Domains.
- In the left menu, click on WordPress.
- At the WordPress website (domain) you want to clone, click Clone.
- In the new menu you can choose to clone to a subdomain or another domain. Make sure the search path is empty, otherwise it will always appear after the url. Below we give two examples for cloning.
Website cloning to a subdomain (staging environment)
With the following settings, we clone the WordPress website from cloud86example.com to the subdomain staging.cloud86example.com. The subdomain staging is often used to test things on a copy of the original website without affecting end users. Examples include upgrading to a different PHP version, testing new themes or plugins.
- Target: Create subdomain
- Subdomain: The part before the domain (in our example, staging) is the subdomain. You can define the name and it will be added in Plesk under Websites & Domains.
- Clone path: this path is set after the domain and appears before each page of the website. We recommend always keeping this empty unless you are working with multi-sites.
- Database name: is generated automatically and you do not need to modify it.
If you have made all the changes and want to restore your staging environment to the main website, you can follow the WordPress: Move staging environment to main domain guide to restore a staging environment.
Note: Do you have a WooCommerce/Webshop website? Then additional steps are needed for the restore to avoid losing intermediate created orders, invoices and products. For this, see the guide: Move WooCommerce staging to main site.
Website cloning to a different domain
- Target: Use existing domain
- Clone path: this path is put down after the domain and appears before each page of the website. We recommend keeping it empty at all times unless you are doing multi-sites. If a WordPress website already exists on this domain, it will indicate that the old website will be overwritten. Click Yes to delete the old website.
- Database name: is generated automatically and you do not need to modify it.
If you need some help, you can always reach our support desk by email support@cloud86.io and on weekdays from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm you can also reach us by phone and via the chat in My Cloud86.