Install and test Wordpress website before pointing your domain

So you signed up for a new hosting for your website, your domain is still hosted elsewhere with some old content and you want to build a new website using Wordpress, you want to test it out before pointing the domain to our server, here is how you can do it.

1. Locate your temporary URL:

You can access your hosting space before pointing the domain to our server using a temporary URL, you can find your temporary URL in your admin area of the hosting account, 'Advanced' tab, it will be in form http://server_host_name/~your_cpanel_user_name , here is a temporary URL example we will use through this article:

http://s82.etcserver.com/~gooduser/

2. Install Wordpress:

Install Wordpress from your cPanel > Softacolous App Installer.

3. Modify Wordpress configuration:

Locate the wordpress configuration file in /public_html/wp-config.php you can use the File Manager in cPanel to locate and edit the file

copy and paste the following in the top of the file:

define('WP_SITEURL','http://s82.etcserver.com/~gooduser');

Save the file and you are ready to check the installed Wordpress:

http://s82.etcserver.com/~gooduser/

and login to the admin area:

http://s82.etcserver.com/~gooduser/wp-admin 

Once you finished your work, you can point your domain to our server and remove the 2 lines you added to wp-config.php file in step 3.

4. Update primalinks rewrite rules in .htaccess file:

Wordpress uses mod_rewrite rules to remove index.php from the generated URLS, these rules must be modified as follows:

replace

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

with

RewriteRule . /~gooduser/index.php [L]

That's it.