Title: Develop WP site alongside current site?
Last modified: August 19, 2016

---

# Develop WP site alongside current site?

 *  Resolved [greencode](https://wordpress.org/support/users/greencode/)
 * (@greencode)
 * [16 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/develop-wp-site-alongside-current-site/)
 * My client has a website already but I am now about to start developing a new 
   site for them. What I usually do is use Private WP to add a simple login to the
   home page (whilst the site is in development) but what I’d like to do with this
   site is to have their old site running whilst I develop their new site in the
   background.
 * My question is how do I do this i.e. I’m unable to see what I’m building whilst
   their other site exists at the same url?

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  [MichaelH](https://wordpress.org/support/users/michaelh/)
 * (@michaelh)
 * [16 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/develop-wp-site-alongside-current-site/#post-1256955)
 * Install and develop on your local computer (see [Installing WordPress](http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress))
   and then move to your client’s host (see [Moving WordPress](http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress))
 * or
 * use the technique in [Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory](http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory)
   then when you go live put the appropriate index.php in you web-root folder.
 *  Thread Starter [greencode](https://wordpress.org/support/users/greencode/)
 * (@greencode)
 * [16 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/develop-wp-site-alongside-current-site/#post-1256982)
 * Thanks for this. If I use the 2nd option (which is the one best suited for me)
   then surely I won’t be able to test the site as it gets developed because when
   I choose to view the site it will show me the index.html file currently at root?
 *  [MichaelH](https://wordpress.org/support/users/michaelh/)
 * (@michaelh)
 * [16 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/develop-wp-site-alongside-current-site/#post-1256985)
 * Assuming you install WordPress in a folder called blog, you would ‘test’ the 
   site as mydomain.com/blog.
 * When ready to go live, ando make WordPress available at [http://mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com)
   just change in Settings->General, the Blog address (URL) to [http://mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com)
   and put this index.php file in your web-root folder (it is the same folder that
   contains the blog folder)
 *     ```
       <?php
       /* Short and sweet */
       define('WP_USE_THEMES', true);
       require('./blog/wp-blog-header.php');
       ?>
       ```
   
 * Then update your permalinks in Settings->Permalinks.
 * You would also have to delete that index.html file.
 *  Thread Starter [greencode](https://wordpress.org/support/users/greencode/)
 * (@greencode)
 * [16 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/develop-wp-site-alongside-current-site/#post-1256992)
 * Thanks once again for this – will definitely make things a lot more straight 
   forward when developing sites for clients that already have a site and don’t 
   want to pull that down until their new one is ready.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘Develop WP site alongside current site?’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [development](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/development/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [greencode](https://wordpress.org/support/users/greencode/)
 * Last activity: [16 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/develop-wp-site-alongside-current-site/#post-1256992)
 * Status: resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics