How to Redesign a New Site while Your Old Site is Still Live?

I have an old static website (about 5 years old, see how time flies) with a blog hosted in an old server. It is hightime for a good upgrade and redesign since some of its technologies/scripts are dated and not supported by latest browsers. In addition, there are other goals I hope to achieve for this redesign and update.

• Upgrade the development platform for the website i.e. shifting the whole website to wordpress platform, making it to easier to update in future
• Try to leverage on wordpress' free and powerful plugins so that less script is needed for customization
• Redesign the look and feel of the website with Headway Premium Theme
• Integrate Social Media features so that the content can be shared more easily
• Upgrade the hosting server to a server with a cPanel function
• Upgrade the blog from wordpress version 2.7 to 3.0.1
• To make the site SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly

I’ve checked with my web hosting company and they suggest three options with each option has its pros and cons.

1. Create a Test Site in Sub-Directory
   They would help to migrate all the content from the old website to the new website including the blog from the old server.
   
   Pros: I can then continue doing my revamp work behind the scene in a sub-directory while the old website and blog continue to run live in the new server.


Cons: However, I afraid I might mess up the current system files and other files accidentally. In addition, I afraid the links, URL or paths might not work well when move to root directory because I’m working and testing in a sub-directory.

1. Set Up a Production Site in New Server
   Or, they would set up a production site for me in a new server. I will treat it as a fresh install and develop my revamp website and blog there.
   
   Pros: This seems to be ideal as I’ll be trying out some new technologies and techniques, any mess up will not affect my old website and blog.
   
    Cons: You will lose your search ranking as you are going to have your website at new server.
 
2. Set Up a Local or Virtual Server
   Install XAMP (for Window) or MAMP (for Macintosh) on a local or virtual server and do the revamp work from there. In short, install the XAMP as I’m running PC on my computer or laptop and do the development from locally. Once it is done then uploads the whole content to the live server.
   
   Pros: It sounds good because I do not need to have a separate server to do my testing. It can also be a time-saver as I can design and test everything on my own computer/laptop first without the need of FTP or SSH. I can work offline anytime and anywhere.
   
   Cons: However, it could be daunting when I need to get into phpAdmin to export my website database and change the links and URL to the correct paths. I think I’ll try this until my php skills are much more better.
   
I learnt about this technique later from the Headway forum, thought it was quite a good idea so decided to put it down here to share with you.


3. Use Backup Buddy plugin to move Test Site to Live Site.
   This technique is actually the extension of Option One above as it helps to streamline the migration from sub-directory to main directory. How it works is I can set up my test site in a sub-directory or sub-domain, installing the wordpress, headway theme editor and plugins. Once I’ve added the content and test out the links then use Backup Buddy to backup everything and move it over to the root directory.
    
It is said that the Backup Buddy is able to convert the links, URL or paths for you while you are moving from sub-directory to main directory. This will definitely help to solve countless of hours of troubleshooting and debugging of the site. Furthermore, you do not need to change the database (mySQL) or phpAdmin to work, it handles this for you which is a good news for non-technical person.

Eventually, I’ve decided to go with option 2. I think it will so much easier to have a production site with all new fresh install and once everything is done, just redirect the old site traffic to the new site. However, since I’ll be using new site structure and page names, I might be losing some traffic or other issues that I might not be aware of. Nevertheless, it is still worth trying out since the site will be upgraded with the latest technologies and other neat bells and whistles.

At the moment, I can only just keep my fingers crossed, hoping for the best and expecting for the worst.