Install WP on existing html site

  • My web host offers an “easy install” WP application version 4.4.2. I have yet to install WP on my domain as I so not want to lose my current splash page of my html site.

    If I create the WP at the https://www.domain.com/WP so I can setup and test the site. After the WP site is complete how do I make that the domain.com? I do not want a sub directory to be used as the public site. I’d like a clean install with all the files where they need to be, but again I do not want to overwrite my current splash page at the domain.com address.

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

  • Once you are happy with the site there are plugins that you can use to transfer the site. One that I use is WP migrate DB. I think you should install WP on your sub domain and get started

    Hi guesssilk

    I’d guess it’s safe to do the “easy install” unless the host deletes the contents of your public_HTML folder as part of the process. The safe option is to install WordPress manually and leave the html site intact. It’s relatively easy to do a manual install, check out the Famous 5-Minute Install. By default your host should serve index.html (or default.html) before it serves index.php. If it doesn’t work, you can edit your .htaccess file and add the following line:
    DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm default.htm index.php

    What you will have to consider is that when you setup WordPress, you’ll need to browse to https://www.domain.com/index.php and not just https://www.domain.com.

    Depending on how complex your current splash page is, you could use a plugin like Minimal Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode and set up a “Coming Soon” page to replace the existing HTML splash page.

    Hope you come right.

    Thread Starter guesssilk

    (@guesssilk)

    Can I just install everything in the https://www.domain.com/WP folder and then when I’m ready to go live edit the .htaccess file to make the site appear on the https://www.domain.com ? I do not want the https://www.domain.com/WP folder to be public or any reference to that location public.

    Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. The paths will all point to domain.com/WP so you’ll have a lot of broken stuff.

    If I may ask, what’s the address of your site? It’ll give me an idea of how complex your html setup is.

    Thread Starter guesssilk

    (@guesssilk)

    It’s not that complicated, it’s just a splash page – https://www.themeparkconnect.com

    I’ve created a subdirectory at dev.themeparkconnect.com to install the WP application. When I’m done with the setup, can I just copy all the files to the https://www.themeparkconnect.com location?

    yes, you can do that , you will have to edit some of the data base tables, that’s it.

    The plugin that I recommended earlier has the option to use HTML. I’ve just given it a quick try and it works well.

    If I was you, I’d install WordPress in the public_HTML folder and then install and activate the plugin. You could take the html that you have used for coming soon page and insert it in the HTML section of the plugin.

    Not sure of your experience with WordPress so this might all seem daunting but it’s doable and you’ll learn a lot in the process.

    Thread Starter guesssilk

    (@guesssilk)

    Can I create the site and then move all the folders to the public_HTML folder when finished?

    You can do but you have to also change the detials in the database . If you look at setting> general WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) by changing these setting you can get what you are looking for also.

    Although it’s possible to do it the way you’re wanting, you might just find that it’s more of a hassle than it’s worth. You can read more about changing your sites URL in the WordPress codex.

    Although, as hazephase has pointed out, you can change the URL in Settings, you’ll probably have a lot of cleaning up to do when you make the move. Consider for example you add an image to a page, WordPress uses the absolute path of the image, i.e. https://www.yoursite.com/wp-content/uploads/… which in your case will be https://www.themeparkconnect.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/…. These sorts of things won’t be fixed by changing the site URL in the settings. Which means you’re either have to fix them page by page or dive into the database and fix them there. All that said, you could also use relative paths when designing the site. Your HTML already uses relative paths.

    I’d recommend installing WordPress directly into the public_HTML folder and use the “coming soon” plugin I suggested earlier. It’ll be really easy to copy the HTML into the plugin and have it manage the coming soon aspect of your site.

    Another thing to consider is that if search engines index your site before you move everything out of the WP folder, they are going to have a lot of broken links to deal with the next time they scan your site.

    If you decide to go with my suggestion, make a backup of the contents of public_HTML before you install WordPress. If things don’t work out, you can always delete everything and restore the backup.

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
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