Nope that’s the way to do it (or locally). Check out WP Migrate DB. It will run a find and replace on the db for you when you change domains. Just don’t use absolute links in your code so that it migrates smoothly. Use home_url, plugins_url, etc instead of relative thinks though.
Thanks. How do you do it locally though.. doesnt it need a database to display correctly etc? Im not sure what you mean about the links thing either. give me an example of a relative link maybe that will help me understand.
it was shared with me on another forum 2 other methods..
XAMPP(windows) or MAMP(mac) is simply a local server that allows to work, well, locally 🙂
OR an under construction pluggin by Jeremy Messel that puts up a default under construction page for you as you work online or you can even do your own custom HTML one. I think Ill do the plugin.
I really prefer to do things locally, but not everyone has a server in the next room or the computing power to run XAMPP/WAMP/MAMP. Check out WP Maintenance Mode for keeping a site from being publicly available. Also don’t forget to set the option under Settings > Privacy to ask search engines not to index your site while you’re developing. Bing and google both respect this, which is pretty much all anyone uses. Happy coding!
