Skip to content

Backgrounds

How-to Guides

Technical References

Launch a site /

Prepare for launch

Lower the domain’s Time To Live (TTL)

To ensure that your DNS change from your old hosting provider’s address to VIP’s address is recognized as quickly as possible, lower your domain’s TTL to 300 (seconds, or five minutes) or lower. Check with your DNS provider for specific instructions on how to do this on their system.

Decide on your TLS approach

TLS certificates can be procured and installed as a self-service feature of the VIP Dashboard.

Confirm that your site is ready for launch

Migrate SQL databases and media into the VIP production environment prior to launch. We recommend allowing a few days to complete and verify your import, where possible.

It is important to ensure that your site is working as planned before your launch. This is particularly critical if you have worked mostly in a local environment and have not spent much time reviewing or testing your site on the VIP production environment. We recommend using these steps to test your site. Please ensure your site is working as expected (with no launch-blocking bugs on the production environment) at least two business days prior to launch. 

Map your domain

Add the production domain (i.e. http://www.mysite.com) of your new website(s) in the Domains section of your VIP Dashboard. Access to the VIP Dashboard is controlled via GitHub; if you do not have access to the Dashboard, please contact an Administrator of your WordPress VIP-associated GitHub repository.

Note that the domain that you map will replace your VIP convenience domain (i.e. mysite.go-vip.net) and will be the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for your website.

Redirects between the  the www or non-www variants of a domain are automatic on single sites but must be configured for multisites.

Scheduling a supported launch with VIP

If you would like to request support of the VIP team, your launch will need to be scheduled with your Launch Technical Account Manager and the VIP Support team.

The supported VIP site launch hours are Monday to Thursday, 9:00 am – 8:00 pm (09:00 – 20:00) UTC. Launching during this hours provides the most support coverage to help ensure any issues you may encounter during the launch can be discovered and fixed as quickly as possible. We also require VIP-assisted launches to be scheduled at least five business days in advance. This gives both you and the VIP team time to confirm that the site is in good working order, draft and confirm a launch plan, and identify and fix any last-minute issues that may arise.

To schedule a launch, create a Support ticket with the following information:

  • Requested launch date and time, including timezone
  • ID of the subsite or subsites that are launching
  • Current site URL (i.e. mysite.go-vip.net)
  • Launched URL (i.e. http://www.mysite.com)
  • Subsite ID – You can find the site ID by running wp site list in the VIP-CLI or by going to Network Admin > Sites in your multisite environment, selecting Edit for the site you plan to launch, and noting the ID at the end of the URL: /network/site-info.php?id=SITE-ID.

Last updated: September 09, 2021