How to use Sub-domain Temporary as Domain

I'm not certain this is the best method to go about making changes. Why not work to improve or make changes to your site by instead working on the subdomain? You could copy all the content over to it and then test changes there first, then use the data you tested on the main domain after completing testing. This solves a few issues.

First of all, you don't have to redirect your site visitors at all. They'd go to your main site while you test changes on the temporary location (subdomain). Next, you won't be live testing on your domain, since people know that location and would visit it. They won't know the subdomain.

As for moving the files to test, you can try copying over the contents to the subdomain. You are going to have to change any of the configuration file settings to match the new location. You'd also want to clone your database to use that cloned database for testing purposes.

 

You only have to move what you would like to move to test on the subdomain, so if you only want to test a portion of the site and make changes to it, just move that application to the testing subdomain.

At least by testing on the subdomain, you can work to get the subdomain functioning and have the time to mess around with it without worrying how long the site would be redirected / offline.