Staging vs Live Site — What Each Is For

Our sites run on WP Engine, which provides separate staging and production (live) environments for each site. Understanding the difference helps avoid confusion about why a change appears in one place but not another.

What each environment is

• Production (live) — the real, public-facing site that visitors see when they go to your web address. This is what matters for day-to-day content editing.
• Staging — a private, separate copy of the site used for testing changes — new features, plugin updates, theme changes, migrations — before they go anywhere near the live site. It typically sits on its own web address and isn’t indexed by search engines.

These are two entirely separate copies of the site, each with their own database. A change made on staging does not automatically appear on production, and vice versa — they only sync when someone deliberately pushes changes between them.

Who uses staging, and when

Staging is primarily used by us (Ink & Water) for development work — testing plugin updates, building new features, or trialling a design change safely before it reaches the live site. As a content editor, you’ll almost always be working directly on the production site for your day-to-day posts and pages.

Occasionally we may ask you to review something on staging first — for example, checking a new page template looks right before it’s rolled out. If you’re ever unsure which environment you’re logged into, check the web address in your browser; a staging URL usually includes something like staging. or a WP Engine-generated subdomain rather than your normal site address.

Why this matters for content edits

• If you can’t find a change you know you made, double-check you’re looking at the correct environment — it’s easy to end up on a staging link shared previously and assume it’s the live site.
• Content you add on staging (by mistake, or for a review) won’t appear on the live site until it’s specifically migrated across — don’t rely on staging edits reaching visitors on their own.
• If we ever push a full staging-to-production migration (for example, after a larger update), any live content edited in the meantime could be affected — we’ll always flag this with you in advance if it’s likely to happen.

Tips

• For normal day-to-day editing, you should only need the live site — if you’re ever sent a staging link, it’s usually for a specific review request from us.
• Bookmark your live site’s admin login directly, rather than relying on a link from an old email, to avoid accidentally logging into staging.
• If in doubt which environment you’re on, ask us — it’s a quick check and avoids content being added in the wrong place.