Managing a Website

Overview #

The Expanded Website View allows you to configure settings and view important information for your website. Click the Domain details icon () to get to the Expanded Website View. You can also view your website, clone your website, or set your website to maintenance mode from this interface. Each tab on the Expanded Website View provides a different set of information and configuration options.

Expanded Website View #

Overview Tab #

The Overview tab provides a variety of statistics about your website.

• The 7-day Highlights section shows you the number of unique hits on your site, unique visitors, page views, and bandwidth used for the last seven days.
  Note:

  These statistics only reflect communication with this server. They may not be complete if you have caching or a Content Deliver Network enabled.
• The Performance section shows you how well your website performs for desktop and mobile browsers. Lastly, the Traffic section will show you your site’s recent traffic. Without recent data, these areas will not display accurate information.

WP Squared collects performance information from Page Speed™ web performance optimizer, provided by Google®. Clicking on View More provides additional data on the Page Speed Insights for your domain.

Backups Tab #

The Backups tab allows you to view, manage, and create backups for your website. You can also use this tab to set up recurring backups for your website.

To learn more about the Backups tab, read our How do I create a backup? documentation.

Themes Tab #

The Themes tab displays the currently active theme and any installed themes. You can install other themes from the official theme directory for WordPress® by searching for them. The interface lists the themes in alphabetical order and indicate whether they are Active or Inactive.

• To activate another theme, click Activate on the theme. You must verify the theme’s activation.
• To install a new theme, click Install New Theme and search for any publicly listed WordPress theme.
• To delete a theme, click Delete.
• To preview a theme, click Preview.

Plugins Tab #

The Plugins tab shows the plugins available for use by default.

• To activate a plugin, toggle the Active switch on the plugin tile.
• To install a new plugin, click Install New Plugin. Provide search parameters in the provided box to display publicly available WordPress plugins. Once you find the plugin you wish to install, click Install. This will direct you back to the installed plugin interface after you install the plugin. You will have to activate the plugin to use it.
• Delete any plugins on this page by clicking the trash can icon (). If a user tries to use the plugin on a website page, the page will display an error or become unusable.

Settings Tab #

The Settings tab allows you to configure tools, automatic updates for your WordPress installation, themes, and plugins.

Tools #

You can enable or disable several tools for your website, such as the following:

• Search engine indexing
• Debugging
• Password protection
• Enable hotlink protection
• Take over wp-cron.php
• Enable NGINX Caching

To learn more about each of these tools, hover over the tooltip icon ().

WordPress Version Updates #

To configure automatic updates for your WordPress installation, select your preferred option:

• None. I will apply updates manually. - This option will not install updates. You must install updates manually. This gives you more control over your WordPress version but can also leave your site unprotected in the event of a security update.
• Only apply minor version updates. I will apply major version updates manually. - This option only installs minor version updates unless you manually update your WordPress installation.
• Apply all updates automatically. This is the most secure option. - This option installs all updates without any action on your part. This is the recommended option since it provides the most security for your WordPress installation.

Theme Updates #

To configure automatic updates for themes, select your preferred option:

• Default. Use the setting defined by the theme for all update types. - This option allows the defined default option to select the update settings.
• Automatically apply security updates. All other update types will follow the default theme setting. - This option applies all security updates for the theme.
• Apply all updates automatically. This will override the default setting. This is the most secure option. - This option applies all updates for the theme.

Plugin Updates #

To configure automatic updates for plugins, select your preferred option:

• Default. Use the setting defined by the plugin for all update types. - This option allows the defined default option to select the update settings.
• Automatically apply security updates. All other update types will follow the default theme setting. - This option applies all security updates for the plugin.
• Apply all updates automatically. This will override the default setting. This is the most secure option. - This option applies all updates for the plugin.

For plugin updates, you can also choose to have vulnerable plugins automatically deactivated. This option is set to On by default.

Advanced Tab #

The Advanced tab provides information about your WP Squared installation and allows you to make changes to some of the advanced features, such as Zone Editor and PHP Settings.

Database #

The expanded Database section contains your WP Squared database information. You cannot change this information from this interface. If you wish to change it, click Open in phpMyAdmin.

Zone Editor #

The Zone Editor feature allows you to create, edit, and delete Domain Name System (DNS) zone records. DNS converts human-readable domain names (for example, example.com) to computer-readable IP addresses (for example, 192.0.0.1). DNS relies on zone records that exist on your server to map domain names to IP addresses.

To add a new zone record, click + Add New Record. You can add three types of records: A, MX, and CNAME. You can edit any of the current records by clicking the pencil icon (). You can also delete any of these records by clicking the trash can icon ().

PHP Settings #

You can manually update your PHP version; however, we recommend using the Smart PHP Update system.

Smart PHP Update allows you to test a PHP version without affecting your production site. The process clones your site to another domain, sets the new PHP version, and runs checks to see if the PHP switch will break your site. You can review the test results and decide on the switch.

To update your PHP version, select the version in the menu. Then, click Apply to immediately apply the change. To run tests, click Use Smart PHP Update.

• When you click Apply, you can run a backup before updating the PHP version or with no backup. Once you click Update PHP, the PHP version update runs. You will receive a notification of success or failure.

• When you click Use Smart PHP Update, the system begins analyzing your website with the chosen version of PHP. The interface shows the results once the test environment completes its analysis. You can proceed with the update by clicking Update PHP Version or cancel the action.

Logs Tab #

The Logs tab allows you to review the logs generated by your website. Logs can be helpful in troubleshooting issues on your website. The system discards the log after processing it since it can collect a lot of data in a short amount of time. Currently, only Access Logs are available for download.

To view a log, click the download icon () next to the log you wish to view. You can delete the log by clicking the trash can icon ().

Staging Tool #

The Staging Tool creates a complete copy of your website using a temporary domain. This allows you to test new features and updates without disrupting your live website. You can edit and make changes to your site, then publish your changes to your live website.

To create a staging website, click Staging Tool icon () in the top menu of the Extended Website View interface.

For more information, read our Create a Staging Website documentation.

Clone Your Website #

To clone your website, click the Clone icon () in the top menu of the Extended Website View interface.

When you clone your website, you have two options:

• Copy the website to a subdomain of the current website.
• Copy the website to a new domain.

When you’ve made your choice and have entered the necessary information, click Create Clone.

Maintenance Mode #

Maintenance mode allows you to pause the live content on your website while it’s under construction.

To start Maintenance Mode, click the Maintenance Mode icon () in the top menu of the Extended Website View interface.

There are several options available for you to create the Maintenance Mode screen for your website:

Set default social network links #

You can set the default social network links to display your company’s social network sites by default. Users can customize the links in the Maintenance Mode interface.

To set the default social network links, edit the /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/wp-toolkit/var/etc/config.ini file and modify the following lines to your preferred links:

1socialNetworks[facebook]  = "https://facebook.com/MyAccount"
2socialNetworks[instagram] = "https://instagram.com/MyAccount"
3socialNetworks[twitter]   = "https://twitter.com/MyAccount"