Rochen is continually working to improve our hosting platform for WordPress users. Today, we are pleased to introduce the ability to create and manage WordPress staging sites. This new functionality is available free-of-charge for all customers.

What is a WordPress staging site?
A staging site allows you to duplicate your live WordPress site (e.g. rochen.com) to a staging location (e.g. staging1.rochen.com), make changes such as testing new themes or plugins and then push those changes seamlessly back to the live site. This is particularly useful for web design agencies or developers undertaking work without worry of disrupting a live site.

Here are some of the key features of Rochen’s new WordPress staging tool –

  • Easy creation – Create a new staging site with just a few clicks. We take care of cloning your files and database. No manual steps required.
  • Password protection – Avoid duplicate content penalties by keeping search engine spiders away from your staging site.
  • Easy push – A simple tool to push the staging site back to the live location.
  • Advanced push – When pushing live you may want to exclude certain data from being overwritten on the live site. For example, since your staging site was created visitors may have left comments on your live site. You can select to exclude certain files or database tables from being overwritten on the live site. E.g. wp_comments table.
  • Multiple environments – You can create as many staging sites as you need and you can even create staging sites from existing staging sites. You can therefore take advantage of a full development lifecycle that’s as flexible as you need it to be.
  • Logging – Important information such as when you last pushed a staging site to live is easily accessible.
  • Deleting – When you’re finished with a staging site you can easily delete it. We will take care of cleaning up the related files and database for you.

Where can I find the new WordPress staging tool?
Naturally, the easiest place to locate a tool like this is right in your account cPanel. Rochen is developing a series of WordPress-related plug-ins for cPanel that will be available exclusively to Rochen customers. Collectively these plug-ins will be referred to as “WordPress Power Tools”. You can find the new staging tool, the first of these exclusive plug-ins, by logging into cPanel and selecting “Staging” under “WordPress Power Tools”.

Is the WordPress staging tool available for all customers?
Yes, Rochen is pleased to make the new WordPress staging tool available free-of-charge to all customers. Managed Cloud Server (MCS) customers or other customers with their own dedicated environment will need to request this be installed for them. This request can be made by opening a support ticket through the My Rochen customer portal.