How To Use & Change Temporary URL with WordPress

When transferring your WordPress website to Bluehost, it's crucial to ensure that your website remains accessible to your audience throughout the transfer process. One of the steps that you may need to take is to use and update a temporary URL. This temporary address lets you test your website on Bluehost's servers before your domain name is fully connected to the new hosting.

The temporary URL is essential because it allows you to verify that your website works correctly on Bluehost servers before you officially switch your domain name to point to Bluehost. This step helps ensure that everything is functioning properly on the new hosting environment.

• Use and Change Temporary URL with WordPress
• Use and Change From Temporary URL with WordPress
• Summary

Use and Change Temporary URL with WordPress

There are a few cases where you might need to use and change temporary URL with WordPress.

• When your domain isn't fully connected to your new hosting.
• You can't log into Administrator Panel.
• The URL appears like http://www.domain.com/addondomain/, and there are no redirects in the .htaccess.
• If WordPress was installed to an addon domain, the database URL must be changed to something like http://www.addondomain.com.

If you need to use and change temporary URL with WordPress, it requires some simple edits in the database.

1. Ensure your WordPress website is complete and that you know the name of the database. If Fantastico installed WordPress for you, it's likely the name of the database is something like:
   • username_wrd1
   • If you don't know the database name, you can use the File Manager to look inside the wp-config.php file to find out its name.
2. Right-click wp-config.php and select Code Edit. You can now see the username and database.
3. Log in to your cPanel.
4. Look for the Databases section and select phpMyAdmin.
5. Select the database name on the left. (i.e. "_wrd1"). This will display the names of the Tables to the right.
   
6. Click the Browse link right next to the favorite icon.
   
7. Under the option_name section for the siteurl, click the pencil icon located on the left side to edit.
   
8. You will see your domain name. You want to change that to:
   • http://box###.temp.domains/~username/
   

   Warning: This step is crucial so you don't make a mistake. Please take a moment to verify that the URL you are typing in here is correct, or you won't see any change.

9. Once you've changed the URL, down at the bottom, select the Go button.
10. Select the Next button. Look for the option_name section for the home.
11. Select the pencil icon to edit. Make the same URL change here as you did for siteurl earlier.
    
12. Set the home option_value and click the Go button.
13. Visit the temporary URL for your blog (http://box###.temp.domains/~username/), and all the images will show up just fine.

Use and Change From Temporary URL with WordPress

Once you've updated your name servers to link your domain name to your account, you won't need to revisit phpMyAdmin to make that change again.

1. Log in to your WordPress Admin Panel.

   To learn more, please see How To Login To WordPress Sites - WP Admin Access.

2. Click the tab Settings. Here, you will see WordPress and the Site address (URL). It is set to your Temporary URL: http://box###.temp.domains/~username/.
3. Change this to your domain name with any folders required, and you're back to normal.

Summary

If you're transferring your WordPress website to a new hosting provider, it's important to make sure your website remains accessible to your audience during the transfer process. Use and change temporary URL with WordPress to access your website on Bluehost's servers and verify that everything is working correctly before switching your domain name to point to Bluehost. This helps minimize downtime for your website visitors.

You can use and change temporary URL with WordPress through phpMyAdmin by editing the site and home URLs in the wp_options table. Once you've changed your name servers and your domain name resolves to your account, you can update these URLs to your actual domain in the WordPress Admin Panel Settings.