Development server

#1

We have a WordPress site we’re developing here on DreamHost.
From the posts I’ve read here, it sounds like it is very difficult (at least for a low-end technical person like me) to set up an environment where you can have a local development server which you publish up to the DreamHost. That would be ideal for us, and it was easy to do with Microsoft Expression Web, etc.

Anyway, if that is not reasonably easy to do, is there any way to at least shield our new website from Google Web and other searches until it is reach to launch? Right now we’re just experimenting around with learning WordPress and setting up our site, and someone Googling might think what we’re posting is final when in fact the information may not be accurate.

Hope that’s clear. Thanks for any help.

#2

I do my dev on something like beta.example.com. If you really want to shield it, then password protect it:
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Password-protecting_directories

I know the wiki article image says “directories only,” but I I’ve done it on an entire subdomain (stats.example.com).

#3

Seems like you are working on Windows. You can pretty easily set up a working copy using a WAMP such as UniformServer. I’ve used that in the past. You’ll have to figure out the best way to keep your local DB and hosted DB in sync. For the files, you can set up an SVN or Git repository to keep things simple. If you are just playing around and will eventually do all of your content creation on your live site, then you can just dump your DB when you’re ready and import it into your hosted DB.

One thing you may want to consider is installing WUBI or creating a dual boot environment with a Linux distribution. I’ve found that developing in the same OS as the host provides can prevent a lot of headaches.

#4

Sdayman and Bobocat,

Thanks for your responses. In the meantime, I think I discovered a simple solution just by going to Dashboard, Tools, Privacy. The default choice is “I would like my site to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Bing, Technorati) and archivers” but the second choice is “I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors” - that matches what I am trying to accomplish. The only problem, I guess, is that the search engines will have the old finds for a while.

Thanks again.