Update September 2024
Over the months the SiteWorks community has built up much more experience in replicating a SiteWorks site and this article has been updated to reflect this. The previous version of this post outlined the use of the All-in-one WP Migration plugin is available here.
Other sites have had success with WP Migrate Lite that includes support for Local WP, but several users have reported getting “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page” or just a blank screen when launching the site with Local WP.
We now have the most experience with the WPVivid plugin (look for Migration, Backup, Staging – WPvivid Backup & Migration) and the team have compiled a comprehensive guide that focuses on creating an off-line backup of your site and loading it onto Local WP.
It continues to be the case that a SiteWorks site on Local WP cannot be moved to a production SiteWorks site. We hope to be able to assist with moving SiteWorks sites hosted elsewhere when the current Site Builder phase is behind us in 2025.
Finally, a reminder not to store backups on your SiteWorks production host. Always download them and delete if necessary. With WPVivid take care to follow the instructions carefully to avoid this.
Move/Copy a SiteWorks site (advanced, unsupported)
Your SiteWorks hosted site is backed up daily and a request to restore your site can be made through our Help Desk. Note that these daily backups are only guaranteed to be kept for a week.
Two reasons for taking a copy of your site are:
- To train colleagues or try out new features, plugins and designs using Local WP
- To have older backups available that can be referred to. Perhaps to lookup deleted past Events or Groups that have closed.
| Note – if you migrate from your SiteWorks site to an environment other than Local WP then you must remove or change the Administrator email address (Dashboard -> Settings -> General Settings … Administration Email Address). Failure to do so could send emails to the SiteWorks sysadmin team. Also remove the Main WP Child plugin. |
Copy from SiteWorks to Local WP or new host
This PDF guide has step-by-step instructions on how to backup any SiteWorks site and import backups onto Local WP using the VPVivid plugin.
Note that the SiteWorks team do not support moving or copying a SiteWorks site to a new location, but we will try and help on a best endeavours basis. The forum (you need to register) will most likely yield constructive answers. Feedback and comments on the guide that will help others are welcome.