Putting site into a staging area

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Good afternoon.

We are going to make enhancements to our site. I wanted to know if there is a way to take the site off-line and put it into a "staging area". Where we can only see the site until the modifications are complete.

thanks
rich
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Arn
Hello Rich, Thanks for the question. Putting your website into a staging area is always possible, though not always needed, and in some cases more trouble than it's worth. Your website was designed with WordPress at its core, so in order to actually do so, you would need to duplicate your WordPress site. We have an article that details the steps here: Duplicating a WordPress Site. After your changes were complete, then you would need to remove the original site, and then move the duplicate site into place. There's actually a much easier way, because you had stipulated that the website would be taken offline and only you (or authorized people) could see the website while it's being modified. The solution I'm referring to is called "Maintenance Mode". This is a plugin that you can obtain for free, setup a page that indicates that your website is under maintenance (or whatever message you want to state), and then make it visible ONLY to authorized users. If you want to keep a copy of your website BEFORE you make changes, make a complete backup of the website using cPanel or get a backup plugin like Backup Buddy for WordPress. This way, you can always restore the website to its original state before you make changes. Also bear in mind that this is an InMotion Web Design site. You're welcome to make changes to the website, but if you destroy any functionality and you request that the IMW team recover it, then it may incur additional charges (to recover previously created functionality or pages) since you are basically customizing over their existing design. If you have any questions on this issue, be sure to contact the IMW team. I hope this helps to give you the answer you're searching for. Please take advantage of the WordPress functionality and use the Maintenance Mode so that you don't have to go through duplicating your site. Also make sure to backup your website before proceeding with any changes. If you have any further questions or need further assistance, please let us know! Regards, Arnel C.