Changing site's name in local not reflected in wordpress in browser

Support
1

I am creating a website in local to take my time designing it.
I named the local site “domainnamedevelopment(.com”)
When working on the webdesign in wordpress under local (in mac os / firefox), the wp site in wp (browser) is named identical, i.e.“domainnamedevelopment”.

To avoid problems when migrating / going live in the future, I thought I would want to change the name of the local-site to “domainname.com” (which will be the correct domain name for the future live-site) and get rid of the appendix “development”.

I therefore renamed it accordingly in local by changing the name
a) on left side panel in local using a right-click and then “rename”.
b) I additionally changed it under “overview” / site domain.

Now my local site was named “domainname.com”, but the wp site in wp / firefox is still named “domainnamedevelopment.com” .

I then also changed the “wordpress adress (URL)” and “site adress (URL)” name accordingly in wp dashboard in browser / settings.
Result was, I could not get back to the site at all in wp.Short panic!

Smartly, I had made a backup from local, so I deleted the “old” site in local and replaced it with the .zip backup. Everything is back and ready to continue developing. So now I am back at the beginning, i.e. the site in local is named “domainnamedevelopment”, as well as in the wp browser..

Questions:
a) Is this expected behaviour? >> If I change the name of the site in local by renaming it (in left panel in local and eventually also under overview “Site domain”), should that not be reflected in the browser with wp displaying the site’s name?
b) Is all of this necessary / unnecessary, i.e. should I or should I not worry about the fact, that the local site is named differently (“domainnamedevelopment.com”) during the development process from what the final live site will be named (domainname.com).

I am planning to migrate the soon in-local-fully-developed site to my provider using a migration plugin - or is it possible (or even better) to somehow copy / upload all the files to the provider’s server?
I am just worried that the migration to live will be difficult and I certainly do not want to have to rebuilt the site again when being online, hence the worrying about the differnt names.

Hope this makes sense, your help is highly apreciated.
Thank you, HBT

  • Local Version:
    9.2.2+6771

  • Operating System (OS) and OS version:
    mac os 13.5.1

local-logs.zip (872.8 KB)

2

Hi @HBT! Great questions here. Local essentially exists as a “copy” of your site and not a public, hosted version. So if you’re using Site Domains as your Router Mode typically your domain will end in .local or if your Router Mode is Localhost your domain will be something like Localhost:12345. Since Local is just a development tool and not a webhost, typically your domain will never be the same as your live version. You also certainly wouldn’t want them to exist at the same time with the same domain as that will confuse systems/servers.

When you go to take your site live, you’ll add your regular domain to production and point DNS to your host or server. When you migrate your Local site and use a migration plugin or Local Connect then some of the Search and Replace work to change your domain from Local version for Hosted Version will happen automatically but sometimes you’ll still have to clean some of that up yourself using SSH or a plugin like Better Search Replace.

If you’ve been doing work on both the live site and in Local, sometimes things can get cached in your network or browser which may mean you’ll need to try clearing the cache and cookies on your browser and then closing your active sessions to start with a clean slate.

How do I clear my browser’s cache?

You may also have plugins or themes that hold on to cache including old URLS after you’ve made changes and those will have to be flushed too.

The Flywheel guide to clearing your theme/plugin cache

I hope all of that is helpful but if I missed anything or you still have any questions please reach back out!

3

Hey Nick,
thanks for your reply. I think I did understand the general concept, but am more clear now with the next steps, also reg migrating. I hope, everything will work out as planned, Local itself is working like a breeze. Thanks again!, HBT

1 Like
4

Sounds great @HBT! I’m glad Local is working well for you :slight_smile: I’ll close this topic out for now but if you have any other questions or concerns don’t hesitate to reach back out. We are always happy to help!