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10 min

How to Create a WordPress Staging Site

Softaculous, WP Staging plugin, manual setup and push-to-live.

WordPress HostingGuides

BeoHosting Team

10+ years of experience — Web hosting and infrastructure specialists

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A staging site is a copy of your live WordPress site where you safely test plugin updates, theme changes and new features before they touch production. Without staging, every update is a gamble. This guide explains three ways to create a staging site: one-click via Softaculous in cPanel, with the WP Staging plugin, or manually via subdomain — plus how to push changes back to live safely.

How to Create a WordPress Staging Site

1

Option A — Softaculous one-click staging

cPanel → Softaculous → find your WordPress install → "Create Staging". Softaculous clones files, database and configuration at staging.yourdomain.com in 1-2 minutes.

2

Option B — WP Staging plugin

Install WP Staging on the live site, click "Create new staging site", choose tables and folders to clone. The plugin creates a copy at yourdomain.com/staging-name. Free for basic, paid for "Push to Live".

3

Option C — Manual staging via subdomain

Create staging.yourdomain.com subdomain in cPanel, install fresh WordPress, then clone live with UpdraftPlus or All-in-One WP Migration.

4

Protect staging from public access

Add .htpasswd protection in cPanel → Directory Privacy. Add "noindex" meta tag, block search engines in Settings → Reading.

5

Test changes on staging

Run plugin updates, theme changes, custom code edits, layout experiments. Click through critical paths: checkout, contact form, login.

6

Push staging to live

Softaculous one-click "Push to Live" merges back. WP Staging Pro same. Manual: backup live, export staging DB and files, import to live. Always at low-traffic hours.

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FAQ

Answers to the most common questions about our services.

On BeoHosting, staging via Softaculous is included — no extra cost. WP Staging plugin is free for basic; Pro features (Push to Live, full clone) start ~$107/year.

Only if Google indexes it. Always add .htpasswd protection, "noindex" meta tag and block search engines in Settings → Reading. With those in place, staging is invisible to Google.

Yes — create staging-feature1, staging-feature2 for parallel testing. Softaculous lets you create as many as your hosting plan allows.

Refresh staging from live before each round of testing. Otherwise staging drifts from live (different data, plugin states) and tests become unreliable.

Yes, but use the sandbox/test mode of your payment gateways. For PayPal: use PayPal Sandbox accounts. For Stripe: use Stripe test API keys and test cards (4242 4242 4242 4242). For Square: use the Square sandbox environment. Never use real payment credentials on staging, because you could accidentally charge test orders to real customers.

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