Preview your site before pointing DNS

View a site on WebGee hosting before you change its nameservers, using the Website Preview plugin in cPanel.

See how a site looks and behaves on WebGee hosting before you point the domain here. Applies to shared, reseller and Premium hosting.

This is the safe way to run a migration: build the site here, confirm it works, then change DNS knowing there will be no downtime.

Use Website Preview

WebGee provides a Website Preview plugin in cPanel. It gives your site a working address on a subdomain of the server hostname — something like username.server.example.io — and serves it exactly as it will be served once DNS points here.

In cPanel, open Website Preview.
Select the domain you want to preview.
Open the preview address it gives you.

Because the preview is a real addon domain, rewrite rules work, SSL works, and WordPress behaves normally.

Why not the cPanel preview URL

cPanel has a built-in preview at http://server-ip/~username. It exists, but it breaks in ways that waste time:

.htaccess rewrites do not work as expected, which breaks WordPress, Joomla and most other applications.
WordPress needs its Site URL changed to display at all through it, which you then have to change back.
No SSL is possible, so an https:// site cannot be previewed.
It exposes the server's IP address in a link you may be sending to a client.

Previewing a WordPress site

WordPress stores its own address, so it will try to redirect a preview visitor back to the live domain. Website Preview handles this, but if you are testing by other means you can override it temporarily in wp-config.php:

define( 'WP_HOME', 'https://preview-address-here' );
define( 'WP_SITEURL', 'https://preview-address-here' );

Remove both lines before going live, or the site will keep pointing at the preview address.

When you are ready to go live

Point the domain at WebGee — see Check what nameservers your domain is using.

Once DNS resolves here, request a certificate: Install a free SSL certificate.