Starting Over from Scratch Website

Hi there,
My website has been hacked multiple times and I feel it may be time to start over from scratch with a new wordpress and ground up website. Could you please give me direction on how to go about doing that without having my current website down? I am confused on staging. Can I create a from scratch website using staging that is not using any of my current database so I don’t copy a problem on to the new site?

Thank you so much! I would so appreciate step by step direction if possible. I am happy to read, just looking for where to look for the info so I am not running up the wrong tree.

Yes, you can always create a subdomain in your registrar and point to the new server/shared hosting, like: stage.domain.com, and then install the wordpress site from scratch.

Migrating from sub > main domain, now that might be a little tricky, but overall the process is down the road. Nothing too difficult, just need to be careful. Once completed with stage site:

  1. Backup old (compromised) site (db + directory)
  2. Backup stage site (db + directory)

First option:

  1. Point main domain to stage site.
  2. In mysql/mariadb, run command to rename all “stage.domain.com” to “domain.com” references (easy to google this command and make it your own)

Second option:

  1. setup new, fresh, installation, with main/base domain name
  2. export from stage site
  3. import on fresh, new (3rd?) site
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Hey @PWhite2,

You can follow the recommendation of @Jonson. If you need more assistance, please let us know.

Thank you.

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