Replacing live site with duplicated site

Hi, I need to rebrand a site and make lots of content changes without being live. Is the best way to duplicate site? How do I then publish duplicated site to replace current site? And if it extends beyond the duplicate site trial what happens? 

Hi. 
I’d be interested in an answer too…

On 4/24/2021 at 6:22 AM, KatieR said:

I need to rebrand a site and make lots of content changes without being live. Is the best way to duplicate site?

If you have a commerce site and you want to stay on the same version of Squarespace, it may be better to preview another template and make your changes whilst in this preview mode. This will allow you to rebrand without affecting the live site.

An alternative option is to duplicate the site and rebrand the copy. However, if you duplicate the site, the duplicate will not contain your backend data, for example commerce order history, customer accounts and analytics information.

When you are ready to go live, you’ll need to:

• start a new subscription plan for the new site, and cancel the old subscription. 
• move your domain(s) by disconnecting it from the old site and connecting it to the new one. When you cancel your old site, you will lose any data that you don’t export.
• reconnect all third-party services like payment providers, social media accounts, Zapier automations, mailing lists and so on (if you use them)

Hi paul2009,

A question! I am working for a firm that has an existing Squarespace site.

I am creating a new Squarespace site using another template - just restarting everything from scratch.

We would like to move the domain from the existing site over to the new one that is being worked on. And then we want to either delete or, preferably, just take the old site offline and have it not occupy that domain any more.

I see the note above that says:

"When you are ready to go live, you’ll need to:

• start a new subscription plan for the new site, and cancel the old subscription. "

So here's my question. The existing site is paid for until August 10, 2021. Since it still has time on its meter, so to speak, is there a way to just transfer the existing domain to my new Squarespace site, without making any alteration to the subscription plan?

It would seem like a one-to-one exchange - just switching our plan from an old site to a new one, but still just having one site in the end.

If you can help me understand this process, that would be so helpful. Thanks!

1 minute ago, NoelM said:

The existing site is paid for until August 10, 2021. Since it still has time on its meter, so to speak, is there a way to just transfer the existing domain to my new Squarespace site, without making any alteration to the subscription plan?

No, this isn't possible.

On Squarespace there's no concept of a single billing account; every site is billed as an individual entity. This means that you must start a new subscription for the new site and then cancel the old one. Squarespace do not offer pro-rata refunds, so you will not be credited for any "time on its meter".

6 minutes ago, paul2009 said:

No, this isn't possible.

On Squarespace there's no concept of a single billing account; every site is billed as an individual entity. This means that you must start a new subscription for the new site and then cancel the old one. Squarespace do not offer pro-rata refunds, so you will not be credited for any "time on its meter".

OK - thank you so much for your quick response. Much appreciated guidance!

On 6/8/2021 at 9:50 PM, paul2009 said:

No, this isn't possible.

On Squarespace there's no concept of a single billing account; every site is billed as an individual entity. This means that you must start a new subscription for the new site and then cancel the old one. Squarespace do not offer pro-rata refunds, so you will not be credited for any "time on its meter".

This is an absolutely appalling system! For what is an already very expensive subscription cost you would expect the very least you would get is the ability to switch designs as and when you like. Im sure that this would cost Squarespace nothing in terms of any added labour so this system is obviously just a means of milking the customer of as much money as possible. I will not be renewing my subscription this year and i will find some other service. 

13 minutes ago, ronanmor said:

For what is an already very expensive subscription cost you would expect the very least you would get is the ability to switch designs as and when you like.

@ronanmor If it helps, the answers above referred to Squarespace 7.0, where there were many different templates, each of which had a different design, different structure and different features. 

However, I see that you are on the latest version of Squarespace (7.1) and this version has a single template, with a single structure and ALL the features. You can therefore change your site's style without needing to "upgrade" or choose a different template. If you like any of the named "starting points" on Squarespace 7.1 you can modify your existing site to achieve it without requiring subscription or template changes 🙂

30 minutes ago, paul2009 said:

@ronanmor If it helps, the answers above referred to Squarespace 7.0, where there were many different templates, each of which had a different design, different structure and different features. 

However, I see that you are on the latest version of Squarespace (7.1) and this version has a single template, with a single structure and ALL the features. You can therefore change your site's style without needing to "upgrade" or choose a different template. If you like any of the named "starting points" on Squarespace 7.1 you can modify your existing site to achieve it without requiring subscription or template changes 🙂

Thank you for your reply but this is terribly inconvenient. The whole selling point of Squarespace is that it is template driven and "easy" to use. So having to completely restructure one template to resemble another (which is already available) manually is an awful lot of work compared to simply working on another template and swapping over the domain once it is done. 

It has been my experience that changing templates inside 7.0 is not a snap of the fingers, even inside the same template family. That is one of the things that the one template 7.1 allows to be done  easier, a retweaking of any named starting design point to be made to look like any other. That is less trouble than a template switch in my opinion. 

I'm using Squarespace 7.1.
I have duplicate my website and make some changes.
Now I need to go live with this duplicated and changed website and put off-line the previous one.
How can I do that without making a new subscription?
Please Help!!!

...I changed my other website with the changes I made in the duplicated one.
So I'm in no rush to have this answer anymore. But if someone know if that's possible in 7.1, it may be important to know for someone else.