Thread: Switching to Wordpress when you already have a site up

I want to switch to Wordpress, but I don't want my current site to be down while I put together the new site (which could take at least 2 weeks to put together).

Any advice on how to get around this? I'm using GoDaddy as my host, and they seem to have Wordpress installation integrated into their hosting, but they don't address this concern

I did something similar, going from the GoDaddy "Website Tonight" site builder to making a whole new site with an HTML editor and traditional hosting. But I also did not want my current site to go down in the process.

What I did was purchase a new domain (Home) and upload my work in progress to that URL, and when it was all finished, GoDaddy moved my original URL (Home) to the traditional hosting and all the files that had been uploaded to the .net domain were now functional with the .com one.

I have to say that their tech support was wonderful, and totally held my hand through the entire process. If you call them, they should be able to walk you thought the whole process.

Well it's just a matter of building the new site which will have the GoDaddy domain in the url. When the new site is ready, you point your domain Najla Belly Dance NYC - Belly Dance Classes and Performances in New York City to the new site.

can you build and test the wordpress site locally and then upload to webserver when ready?

yes, you can build it locally but you have to install a couple of things on your computer to make it work. There's an installation guide on wordpress.org.

Originally Posted by sabrinabellydancer

can you build and test the wordpress site locally and then upload to webserver when ready?

Yes. However, I chose not to do this because I wanted to make sure everything on my new site was functional on the web when it went live. With the software I used (NVU), there were certain things that looked fine on my computer, but were buggy when uploaded to the site.

Give the tech support folks a call. There's a way to do it where Wordpress is not your main index page and then when you've got it looking spick and span you can switch it so it IS your main index page. This way, you have your normal site up while you're working on the new one and then instantaneous switching when you're ready.

Of course, you could always just do it at 2am. LOL!

Probably creating a new subdomain like wordpress.yourdomain.com and using that as a test site to get everything right. Then you can either point your domain to that subdomain or transfer the files from the subdomain to your main domain.

The WP site is operated off a database on your MySQL and that should remain in the same place even with the subdomain to main domain changeover. Which, trust me, will make things a whole lot easier.

This is what I'm doing for now ..taking longer than I thought because I'm busy dancing these days but I love the wordpress

So my boyfriend is trying to get me to convert from Dreamweaver to Wordpress....anyone have any strong opinions either way? I really like Dreamweaver and dislike Wordpress, but he's been developing Web sites for over a decade and seems to think that is the best route. Should I start a new thread?

I've done both. In fact, I was just discussing with my boss about getting one of our darling pro bono projects to change from the quick and dirty Dreamweaver site I built them to a WordPress site. (Mainly because I don't want to deal with doing updates for them.)

If you blog and like to update your site a lot. You can update your site from anywhere via the web.

You can change the look of it with a template. There are plenty of fun widgets. And you can make other people editors on the site.

Go for WordPress.

thanks for all the tips...looks like I'll call GoDaddy and have them hold my hand through setting up Wordpress. Now if I can find a day where I'm not totally brain-dead after work and have time to make a phone call/comprehend the instructions...

How does SEO/meta-tagging work with Wordpress?