Do you want to clone a WordPress site?
Cloning an existing WordPress site is typically the initial step when moving to a new host, a client development project on a local server, establishing a staging website, and various other purposes.
This article will walk you through easy steps to clone the WordPress site to a staging site. This allows you to test and implement updates before deploying them to the live site.
Let us start with the reasons for cloning a WordPress website.
Table Of Content
- Why Do You Need to Clone a WordPress Site?
- Benefits of Cloning Your WordPress Site
- How to Clone Your WordPress Site Through Some Easy Steps?
- How do you duplicate a page/post in WordPress?
Why Do You Need to Clone a WordPress Site?
First, let’s understand the meaning of cloning in WordPress.
Cloning a WordPress website involves creating an identical copy of one site and transferring it to another.
Note: Remember that “cloning” and “backing up” the website both serve different purposes.
Cloning involves making a functional copy of your site at some particular location. Backing up means creating the latest copy of the website files, which you can store and use for any function there.
There Are Different Scenarios When You Might Need To Clone Your Website –
- Changing web hosting provider
- Changing your domain name
- Testing any major updates
- Changing PHP versions and many more things.
Benefits Of Cloning Your WordPress Site
- Testing Environment: Cloning allows you to duplicate your site for testing purposes without affecting the live site. This is useful for experimenting with new themes, plugins, or updates before implementing them on the leading site.
- Backup Strategy: Cloning serves as a backup strategy by providing a replica of your site that can be restored quickly in case of data loss or website issues.
- Development Workflow: Cloning facilitates a streamlined development workflow by enabling developers to work on new features or updates in a separate environment before pushing changes to the live site.
- Website Migration: When migrating your WordPress site to a new host or domain, cloning simplifies the process by allowing you to replicate the site and then transfer it to the new location.
- Version Control: Cloning your site at different stages of development allows you to maintain version control and revert to previous versions if necessary.
How To Clone a WordPress Site Through Some Easy Steps?
Before moving to the first step, you must set up your staging environment.
You can establish an account at a different web host or create a local environment.
Step 1: Install and activate the Duplicator plugin
- First, download the Duplicator plugin from
- WordPress Dashboard > Plugins > Add New > Search “Duplicator”
Step 2: Create a Copy of Your Website and Download it
After the Installation, move to the duplicator tab on your WordPress dashboard and click the Create New button.
- For identification purposes, enter your name.
- You can choose from different storage options.
- Once you are done, click on the Next button.
The duplicator will scan your site. If it detects any issues with your WordPress website, you’ll receive a warning and instructions on resolving the problem.
Once you see the ‘Scan Complete’ message, click the ‘Build’ button to proceed.
The plugin will then create a backup of your WordPress database, images, templates, plugins, and all other files in a single downloadable package.
The duration of the process may vary depending on your website’s size, potentially taking a few minutes.
After the backup process completes, it’s time to download your files.
You’ll need to download both the archive file containing your backup and the Installer responsible for unpacking the archive.
Step 3: Upload the files to a new server
- Now that you have a complete backup of your site and the installer file, the next step is to upload them to the new location.
- You will need File Transfer Protocol (FTP) accounts set up for that.
You have two options: Filezilla or your host’s file manager. - You need to log in to the FTP server to upload the files.
Ensure you upload those files to the website’s leading directory, which is generally called public_html.
Step 4: Set up for the Website Clone’s Database
First, we will set up an empty database where the cloned website will reside in preparation for our next step. To do that, log in to the cPanel account.
- Then, using a duplicator installer, import the content of your original website’s database into the new one.
- Navigate to the Databases > MySQL Databases and create a new database.
- Set a name (related to your website) and confirm your choices.
- Now, scroll down until you see the “Add New User” section.
- Add your name and password, and confirm your choice.
- Go to the Add User to Database.
- Finally, select the user you have just created and add it to the database you have just created.
- You will see that the plugin is asking you what privileges you want to add to the user.
- You must stick to “All Privileges”, meaning you will be granted full access.
- Save it and keep a note of the user information and database.
Step 5: Run the Installer and complete the Cloning Process
You are on the root server with the files.
- Now, you can run the Installer and clone your website.
- Then access your new website by adding /installer.php to the URL given below –
http://www.myclonesite.com/installer.php
- This will enable you to access the Installer file you downloaded earlier and start cloning.
- The Duplicator will check for errors, alert you before processing, and then ask for confirmation.
- Click on Next.
- The Duplicator will extract the archived files and put all your old site files into the new one.
- In the next step, you need to enter your database information.
Now you are almost there.
- Duplicator will ask you to confirm your site’s URL, Title, and installation path.
- Fill in those files and click the Next button.
Finally, the installer will ask you to update the permalink structure, test your cloned site, and determine whether it works correctly.
CHEER UP! You have successfully cloned your WordPress site!
Are you looking to duplicate individual pages in WordPress, not the whole site? Here is how you can do it:
How To Duplicate A Page/Post in WordPress?
There are two ways to duplicate WordPress pages and posts; you can do it with and without plugins.
Duplicate Page/post In WordPress Using Plugins
- To duplicate a page using a plugin, first log in to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugins >> Add New Plugin.
- Search for a plugin that allows you to duplicate pages in WordPress easily. You can use plugins such as “Yoast Duplicate Post”, “Duplicate Page and Post”, or “Post Duplicator”.
- After installing and activating the plugin, configure the setting that meets your needs. These steps vary depending on your plugin, but most should have the following settings.
- Go to Pages >> All pages >> Select the pages and posts you want to duplicate.
- Select and click on the option to duplicate a page/post.
Most plugins allow you to choose multiple pages or posts simultaneously, enabling you to apply bulk actions to duplicate selected posts/pages.
Duplicate Page/Post in WordPress without using Plugins
If you don’t need to use a plugin, there is another simple method to duplicate a page in WordPress.
You can manually copy and paste the code of the page that you want to duplicate. Follow these steps:
- To copy a page/post, hover over that particular page or post and click on Edit.
- From there, Go to the More Tools and Options menu.
- Click on the code editor.
- Copy the whole code of that page/post.
- Go back and click on New Post/Page.
- Under that, Open the code editor & Paste the copied code.
That’s it. You have successfully cloned the whole page/post content. But you must follow this process for every post/page you want to duplicate, which is time-consuming. So, a plugin is recommended to duplicate multiple WordPress Pages.
