For some time now, I have been considering putting together a perfect WordPress clone so that people just like you can deploy it on their domains, and save a ton of time installing all of the associated plugins, and setting everything right.
The problem that I have been facing is that the previous method that I used to clone WordPress installations was not exactly user friendly for those who do not know how to code or edit settings in the phpMyAdmin area of your C-Panel account. It is for this reason that I held off for so long, in anticipation that I would find a solution that is easy for everyone to use. I didn’t want to produce a clone file that was buggy, and just didn’t work as expected for a portion of you all. Now that I have found a solution for this, I have created a clone file that I would like to share with you all today.
What Changed This?
Through the magic of Twitter, I have been introduced to a wonderful script called WPtwin that I have been able to test, and use to deploy several websites across multiple domains, and save hours of my own time in the process. As a website flipper, this is an extremely valuable tool for me, as this now drops the time taken to deploy multiple websites down from several hours to just a few minutes. This will do the same for you.
It is worth mentioning that you will need your own copy of WPtwin in order to use this WordPress clone file (Check out WPtwin here).
Why Didn’t I Just Create A Generic Backup?
A few reasons to be honest. Over the past few months, in response to my previous post on how to clone a wordpress blog, I have received a lot of praise, however behind the scenes, there have been quite a few problems that I have been notified of which really do tend to outnumber the good feedback that I have received.
The reason for this is that as WordPress is being upgraded, and new versions are released, there are more settings that need your attention. Things such as media file locations, permissions, and a few more. To create a clone wordpress installation, it simply needs to work, and it needs to work every time. Using a generic backup of the WordPress files and the SQL database simply may not work for everyone, however, the testing that I have done with WPtwin over multiple hosting accounts has proven to be a success.
I am not interested in providing you with a clone file that may not work properly, or may be troublesome to install. That said, as a website flipper, this tool is something that I have found to be a massive time saver, and am more than happy to provide this clone file to you to use with the WPtwin software.
What Does The WordPress Clone Include?
A lot of thought has gone into this, as such, I have included the plugins that work best for me, plus a good sized collection of freely available themes from WooThemes and WPshower.
The plugins installed on this WordPress clone are as follows:
- Pretty Link: A URL shortener that can be used to cloak affiliate links
- Sexy Bookmarks: Very cool looking bookmarking buttons that appear at the bottom of posts
- Topsy: The classic ReTweet button that you have become so familiar with
- Facebook Comments: Requires an API key to work (freely available), and will allow visitors to comment using Facebook, which is great for building social proof
- Subscribe To Comments Reloaded: Keep commenters coming back to your blog
- Comment Redirect: Redirects commenters to a custom page after commenting on your blog
- Frame Buster: Diverts users who view images in Google Images to your website or blog post
- Yoast SEO: The ultimate SEO pack for WordPress
- Yoast Google Analytics: Easy to use Google Analytics plugin and dashboard stats
- What Would Seth Godin Do: Allows placement of text on page that displays different content to new and return visitors
- Contact Form 7: Allows integration of a contact form on WordPress
- Extended Comment Options: Allows you to switch off pingbacks for your blog, and mass disable comments
- User Locker: Prevents brute force attacks on your blog
A few other settings have been included as well, including optimal settings of permalinks so that you can get maximum SEO benefits from your blog, plus adding of the www in front of the domain, and so on. A lot of thought has gone into this clone file, my only hope is that you can put it to good use as I have done for some time now.
Just a note, some plugins will require some settings to be set, however, this should be a very quick 10 minute job for most people. I have not set these, as they are user dependant. For example, SEO settings, Facebook API key, and so on. I hope to provide some more videos in the future on how to set these up.
OK, How Do I Get The WordPress Clone?
As you could understand, this is not the kind of thing that I want roaming out there in the wild, so I need to reserve the numbers that I give out. This is something that is part of my business model, and it should work really well for you as it does for me.
As mentioned earlier, you will need WPtwin in order to use this clone file, and for those of you who manage to purchase WPtwin using any of the links on this page, I will happily send you the clone file, plus some training on how to use it for yourself. Just send me your receipt number when you buy WPtwin from this link, and I will send the details to you straight away.
Looks awesome, thanks! How does WPTwin compare to WordPress Direct? Do they complement each other or is WPTwin a nice substitute? I’m currently in the bronze membership and just use it to deploy a lot of blogs, not manage them inside..
Hi Oliver, both WPdirect and WPtwin are two completely separate things in theory. WPdirect makes it easy to create blogs that you can feed content to automatically, however, WPtwin is more of a script that you use to allow you to deploy a cloned version of a WordPress blog to another domain with a small amount of effort.
Lets say for example, you spent hours researching your plugins and themes, and had them set up on one domain, but you dont want to have to go over it again and install everything again, this just shortens that time frame down to a few minutes rather than anywhere up to a few hours.
However, if you use a plugin like WProbot, and similar plugins to what I mention above, then you could in all essence do what it is that WPdirect does, but using WPtwin to deploy those blogs. I could see that working quite well actually!
Ryan,
Excellent write up and review. I appreciate it. Your bonus clone works wonderful as well! Thanks so much for your kind words and your positive review!
-Jason Fladlien
No probs Jason! Its a super handy script that I am sure many of my readers can benefit from.
Cool! Thanks for the reply.
This will make a great experiment over the holidays.
Hi Ryan,
Your review of this product was solid.
I’m strongly considering this product but most of the plugins that I plan to use are not free or available via the WordPress plugin directory.
For example, WPRobot, Reviewazon, Ranktracker, Comparipress,etc.
How does WPTwin handle the automated setup of paid plugins?
Is it the same or as easy as loading/installing free plugins?
Thanks!
Sunshine
Hi Sunshine, from my testing, WPtwin has basically replicated not only the files, but all data located within the database for your site, which basically means that any settings for any plugins at all will be carried over to your new location.
So far, I have tested it using a wide variety of plugins ranging from your run of the mill free plugins from WordPress plugin directory, plus other paid plugins such as OptimizePress, Wishlist Members, and so on. I have also tested it with Shopping Pages, which is by the same people as WProbot, and it works quite well also, along with another Amazon style plugin called Zon Builder.
To give you an example of WPtwin in action, recently I had to move a site for someone to a new domain. It was roughly 2GB in size, had a ton of plugins installed including PodPress, and a head of other non WordPress folders. It was able to create the backup easily, and it retained all plugins and non WordPress folders as well. Apart from the time taken to upload the file to the new host, it was a very quick process.
Hope that helps! Let me know if there is anything else that you want to know.
Thanks Ryan,
I found one of Jason’s webinar reviewing his product in detail yesterday. I did end up buying it showed that even a techdunce like me should be able to get things going with it.
What a small world by the way. I also have Zon builder, WP Robot, Reviewazon and PluginShops. I have yet to use any of these though. Just have to climb up the steep learning curve, which I have vowed to do this year…for real this time.
I came across your blog for the first time yesterday in my quest for blog cloining information and I must say I really like your style.
May you reach all of your goals this year.
Kindly,
Sunshine
Oh good, hope you get some good use out of it!
All of those plugins are quite good, you should get some good use out of them. Its all too easy to purchase them all and get stuck not using them. I have done the same in the past as well, and have easily around $1000 worth of plugins sitting here that I havent had the chance to use. The key is to learn them all as you need them, not in one foul swoop.
Thanks for the kind comments, and hope that you too have some great goals set for this year. Its going to be a big year, I can see it already!
Hi Ryan,
Neat, this is what i’am looking for. But before proceeding i got some questions.
1. Will WP Twin also clone customized code injected to the WP PHP files? Example, i inserted a PHP includes file in the footer.ph, will that be cloned to?
2. Can i purchase via Paypal?
Thanks
Hi Jay, hows things? A couple of the clones that I use involve WordPress files that have custom code, themes, plugins and more. From my experiences, it has always worked fine. Not only that, but imagine that you have a folder in the root directory called “downloads” or something similar. You can also choose to include that in your clone file as well just by selecting to include non WordPress related folders and files. The way it works is that it finds the files related to WordPress and clones those files, so any customization is intact.
As far as I know, they dont accept PayPal, however, it cant hurt to contact them and see if they can arrange something for you. From what I know, card is the only option that they allow at this point.
Hope that helps, need a hand with anything WPtwin related, chase me up!
Ryan
Great! Thanks for the info. WP Twin i think is the best solution so far, this is as close as it gets. Here is my project, i have to install a cloned WP account into 800+ domains(not sub-domains). These are domains which will have there own cpanel account. So imagine that i will have to install each one individually.
I dont think WordPress Mass Installer could be of any help.
The way that you would do that with WPtwin would involve using Fantastico to install all of those domains, which would need to be done in any case, however, the process of cloning the installation, or transferring the clones over would save a ton of time.
Would take more around days to transfer that many websites instead of weeks or months. I have actually had to transfer some sites for someone I work with recently, and some of them have taken a full day alone to transfer manually, however, when i used WPtwin to transfer them, it literally took 5 minutes per site. Was a great way to make light work of a complex task.
Hey Rian, seems great. I have a few questions:
* If a blog is using the network ‘my site’ feature which allows you to use the blog for multi-domains would your plug-in be able to reproduce this on the transferred domain
* Is your plug-in also meant as a way to ‘backup’ or ‘replicate’ the database as well as maintaining the same settings? For instance, how would it compare to this: http://www.xcloner.com/tutorials/how-to-preview-your-website-transfer-before-switching-dns/#more-271
* If the blog has any mod rewrites .hta (not an expert) governing some of the configuration can you plugin help reproduce this or would this be a separate process?
Thanks
Jason
Hi Jason, I think I remember you asking me about this in Twitter the other day. As for WPMU configs, I have not tested this just yet, but I do plan on it at some point. Not too sure how much luck I will have, as I dont work with the WPMU platform myself, but I do know a few people who do, so I can see it as being a big help IF it works.
As for backing up a blog, WPtwin will backup the entire blog, files, and database as a single file that works only with WPtwin.
As for the link that you provided, to check if the site is working, I will generally browse to the location of the files using the IP for my hosting account, plus make a small mod to the WPconfig file (the redirect mod that I talk about in this post), and that will give me an idea of whether or not it is working or not.
As for the mod rewrites, from my experience, WPtwin retains all file permissions, so you should be all fine with that too.
Hope that helps.
Let me know how you go.
Wp twin is an excellent tool and now the created an auto backup feature which works just as good
Great revue by the way, I found you while trying to find wp twin clones for sale. If you know where to find some please let me know! I’ll trade or buy them.
If you’re looking for WPtwin clone installations, the Wptwin marketplace has a handful available from people just like you and I who have created them. Its a great resource that is only just going to keep on growing as well.
Hi Ryan,
I have been learning a lot from your blog posts and videos this last few weeks, thanks so much for all your advice, its helpful trying to negotiate so much about WP.
Am concerned that products like WProbot might be looked upon as spinning and would not be what Google wants.
(as Ed Dale has been saying “Good Unique Content is what Google wants, and how important Authorship will be especially now with Google + )
Wouldnt a plugin such as WProbot cause a blog to be sand boxed?
Hi AussieMitch, glad to hear that you are liking my content.
Using plugins like WProbot, you need to be careful. I am not a fan of using them to be completely honest, as the niche blogs that I develop are generally very thick on content, with every part of the website being used for a specific purpose. Sometimes, I will deliver auto generated content, but within reason, adn even then, I do not use plugins to do this, rather I feed from blog networks. Might be an alternative for you?
As for Ed, he is absolutely right. Nothing will rank better than good unique content every single time.
Hope that helps!