[Hidden-tech] Easy way to clone a WordPress website?

[Robert Heller]

At Wed, 08 Jan 2014 15:30:09 -0500 Rich Roth <webmaster at hidden-tech.net> wrote:

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> 
> Shel and others.
> 
> 1) For those wondering and with SQL skills - the statement to fix the url for a WP site is:
> 
> update wp_options SET option_value = "http://FULL. DOMAIN.TLD" WHERE option_name in 
> ('siteurl', 'home');
> 
> Note FULL.DOMAIN.TLD is the full hostname you want visitors to see - 
> guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com
> or www.guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com and the leading "http://" is required.

Note:  when *I* do it, I use sed when I unpack the source SQL into the 
destination database:

bzunzip -c backup....sql.bz2|sed 's/old\.domain\.tld/new.domain.tld/g'|mysql -uUSERNAME -pPASSWORD DATABASE

This not only fixes the above option_values for siteurl and home, it also
fixes any other 'stray' references in the content (such as inserted media with
fullyqualified domain names in the <img src="" /> and in menus and references
in one page or post to another page or post, that are absolute instead of relative).

> 
> 2) it is really critical in today's world that you make sure BOTH www. and non-www 
> versions of your site URLs
> work - it's best if the one you prefer is defined as the web site and the other has a 301 
> redirect to the other.
> 
> Shel seems to like guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com so that should be the Wordpress site
> and www.guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com should 301 to guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com
> If you don't know how to do a 301 - have your hosting company help.

I think WP does this automagically.

> 
> Rich
> 
> On 1/8/2014 11:27 AM, Jeff Brand wrote:
> >     **
> >
> > Stefan and others are correct with some caveats:
> >
> > 1. The configured Site URL is used often to generate dynamic addresses to login pages, 
> > the administrative section, and links in content. If you're attempting to phase out the 
> > old domain over time, it might be worth using some automated tools (previously 
> > mentioned) to update content to use the new address while still keeping the old one 
> > active. If you have no preference which is being used internally, then that action isn't 
> > necessary. If you and your visitors watch the address bar carefully, you may find 
> > yourself being bumped over to one URL or the other accordingly. This is most likely not 
> > a big deal except for your authentication cookies.
> >
> > 2. Google should be able to discern that they are the same site under two names. To be 
> > sure, make sure your SEO tools are including a "canonical url" tag, discussed here: 
> > https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139394?hl=en. View the source of any of 
> > your site's pages to verify whether this is in place and as-expected.
> >
> > This should also let you control which url shows up in Google's results.
> >
> > On 1/7/2014 9:09 PM, Stefan Gonick wrote:
> >>
> 
> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
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