Website Staging Best Practices
The staging is the inherent part of web development. Whenever you need to test or change anything on the website, the ideal way is to move the website to the stage and do it in a controlled environment. This way, only the changes that pass the various analysis test could go live for user experience.
At Breeze, we made the process of staging much easier. You do not need additional plugins, modules, or scripts. Right from the platform, you can move the site to stage in a few clicks.
However, you should follow the best practices while taking the site to the stage to take complete advantage of staging.
Website Staging Best Practices
#1 Take a Full Backup
Always make a full backup of the live site before moving to the staging. Taking manual backup is critical as the automated backups are done at a specific time. If it is at 2 AM GMT, and you are working on the site at 2 PM GMT, you are losing 12 hours worth of data by not taking a manual backup. Always take a snapshot before updating your live site or making any significant changes.
#2 Disable emails
Always disable email when working on staging. You do not like to send multiple emails to the customers if the users are not supposed to be aware of the changes you are making. As the website come to live, you can publish a notification with the updates and logs.
#3 Clear the cache
It's a common mistake. After you make changes to the site and hit save, you try to see the changes. But instead of the new version, the browser displays the elements that you just removed or changed. It's all in the cache. Keep clearing the cache to view the changes you are making. Using incognito can also do the work, but sometimes even incognito fails.
#4 No Partial Backups
It is so critical that I have to mention it twice. Do not take partial backups. Take complete backups. Breeze allow you to take the backup of the only database, or media, or code. But if you are going to stage, take the entire backup of the website. It ensures that you can always restore your entire website at any time.
#5 Keep the Staging Site Private
At Breeze, when you make the staging site, we automatically set it private. However, if you are doing it manually, you should make sure that the Staging site is private. You can also block the Google bots, so it does not appear in the search result, besides your live site. The staging site is a controlled environment, and you should know what is happening on the site all the time. Keep it password-protected so only you and your team can access it.
#6 Turn Off Automatic Updates
Never update anything on websites automatically. A website is made up of various technology working together to create a visual interaction of the database. All the technologies, languages, servers, and scripts depend on each other to provide a seamless experience and functionality to the user. If any of them get updated automatically and does not collaborate appropriately with the other website elements, then the website could go down. Even the small upgrades and updates should be tested on stage to ensure the website's safety and security.
Wrap Up
These are some best practices involving website staging. If you have any doubt or question regarding the stage, you can contact our support team. If this is helpful, please thumbs up this document. If not, please let me know how I can make it better.
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