Best way to develop a new theme on a live site, with new content? [closed]

You should never do work on a live site (of any size).

Copy the existing site to another server, give it a temporary domain and block search engines in some way (robots.txt, http auth, …). Depending on the work you do, you could stay connected to the same MySQL server, but it is usually recommended to also copy the tables to another db.

Now you have an environment where you can do all your work without any fear that if anything breaks, the live site will suffer. Once you are finished, simply upload your themes and plugins to the live site, install them, et voilà.

You can even use the regular theme update method for custom themes not hosted in the official repository.

Related Posts:

  1. How to add custom css file in theme?
  2. get_template_part vs action hooks in themes
  3. Do I actually need to link my theme’s style.css in the theme files
  4. CSS classes for theme
  5. How to remove search bar from a wordpress theme? [closed]
  6. Get url of thumbnail from the media uploader
  7. Should I use set_transient or update_option?
  8. Template for individual post designs
  9. Best practice way to implement custom sections into a WordPress theme
  10. Pushing updates to your premium theme
  11. Where can I find a good reviewed collection of Twenty Ten child themes?
  12. Front End Post Submit Form
  13. How do I remove RSS feeds from themes?
  14. CSS in child theme not overriding the parent theme [closed]
  15. First post of each category
  16. Advantages of using instead of wp_enqueue_style()?
  17. Style.css redirects to 404 Page not found
  18. Displaying wp menus by name without using theme locations
  19. How to add dynamic inline style?
  20. Optimal solution to develop a wordpress theme?
  21. How to add suggest plugin to theme?
  22. Prevent update check for specific theme
  23. Do I really need the div class entry?
  24. How Can I Create a List of Values to Be Iterated Through via WordPress Customization API?
  25. Am I supposed to create a child theme for every theme I use?
  26. If I build a custom theme, will it update?
  27. using wordpress without javascript
  28. Recommended tools for Theme Development with SASS [closed]
  29. What tags should be used for themes to show the type of layout?
  30. Theme Check: Could not find post_class
  31. What are non-printable characters doing in my theme?
  32. Why wp_head() function not loading style.css?
  33. Override theme programmatically
  34. Set multiple templates per post
  35. WP 3.1 upgrade breaks AutoFocus+ theme
  36. How can I display/hide certain content based on a Theme Option field?
  37. create-guten-block in wordpress theme?
  38. How can I make that when I clic on one of the menu items, that page shows only posts with the same category?
  39. Lightweight framework [closed]
  40. Theme Splash Image within the “Appearance -> Themes” control panel [duplicate]
  41. Theme Loading Into Dashboard
  42. How to make theme elements customizable in wordpress?
  43. How to add “Template” option in page attributes panel?
  44. How to edit my theme for full width?
  45. Which html elements should be styled in wordpress theme
  46. Folder name for a pro version of a WordPress.org theme?
  47. Echo all category names, apart from one
  48. Admin: sub menu doesnt display under apperance when activate my themes
  49. Does code in function.php differ from theme to theme
  50. How can I change the theme of different posts using a plugin?
  51. How to Have a Pure HTML Sub Directory In WP Site
  52. Theme not showing up
  53. Theming Using Bootstrap Glyphicons and WordPress Dashicons
  54. Change image size depending on page
  55. What are the critical theme files when building a custom theme?
  56. Having issue with WordPress wp_enqueue_style
  57. Starting point for custom Themes [closed]
  58. Why still output /wp-content/themes/twentynineteen?
  59. get_header action not working
  60. Unable to change the priority with ‘remove_action’ and ‘add_action’ in child theme
  61. Remove h1 from 2015 theme
  62. WordPress pulling in random page themes
  63. Some doubts about WordPress handle the horizontal main menu visualization
  64. Filter didn’t work on content class (hybrid_post_attributes)
  65. Can’t change theme name
  66. How to remove permalinks links presents in each page of my site?
  67. Is there a way to serve different resolution images to different devices?
  68. How to make a function occurs for one time?
  69. How do I restructure the comment HTML layout?
  70. Custom Enfold theme tab layout not compatible with WPML
  71. Theme: dropdown hover menu not showing up in IE/Edge
  72. Problem with pagination link (error 404)
  73. how to ensure responsiveness in wp themes? [closed]
  74. How to test another theme in a live WordPress website instead of live preview?
  75. home is not working in wordpreess
  76. Is there a way to create sections under “Colors” panel in the Theme Customizer?
  77. Local theme changes upload on server but theme changes not showing
  78. WordPress Custom font not found
  79. Can’t upload images on new theme
  80. New created Theme leads to malfunctioning Xampp Apache –> functions.php is cause
  81. WordPress Blog Page displaying nothing
  82. Primary Menu Showing All Pages With No Sub-Nav
  83. Magnific Popup – Add Caption to Images
  84. Why do WordPress developers use so many opening and closing PHP tags when developing themes? [duplicate]
  85. Safe way to echo wp_trim_words
  86. How can I demonstrate themes well?
  87. Why the slideshow is not shown in my theme?
  88. How to update my own theme?
  89. WordPress custom jquery not found
  90. Displaying Tags for the Page I’m On?
  91. Custom link color or stylesheets
  92. How to make navigation a list without a plugin? [duplicate]
  93. Showcase your wordpress themes [closed]
  94. What is The Best Way to Make Parallax header effect for wordpress theme ?? pure CSS or using JavaScript? [closed]
  95. How to remove proudly created by WordPress in theme?
  96. Roll my own theme or customize an existing one [closed]
  97. Why do some sites show themes/”themename” as the only theme?
  98. How do I add new layout width options in WordPress editor?
  99. How to show associated fields if checkbox is checked in customize widget screen using wp_customize?
  100. Meaning of “if ( is_home() && ! is_front_page() )” snippet?