From staging to production

I'm redesigning a site that will eventually live at www.site.com. There is content there that i don't want to disturb until launch.

I will be installing some kind of new cms for the redesign. I'm just curious as to how I should go about working on this.

Should I create the subdomain at staging.site.com and then when I'm done, change the domain properties in the web panel to www.site.com and overwrite the old site? Will that even work?

It might, but I wonder if the cms will understand that the domain has changed. it might have "hooks" in it that point to the old domain.

It may work if you use relative links and both domains use identacle directories. I do not know if cms understands relative links or not.
Silk

My website

It can work fine that way (that's what I do), but depending upon the CMS you use, you *will* need to change at least a few things after the directory rename/change to facilitate that change. Plus, as silkrooster points out, relative links are important.

--rlparker

Thanks fellows. That's what I'll try and do then.