Production and Testing Sites with Minimal File Duplication

[bobski]

Hi,

New here and new to GoDaddy and a novice user of html/css.
I setup about a week ago my GoDaddy account and got a new domain name of xyztesting.club. More recently an existing domain name, xyz.com, was transferred to me (from another GoDaddy account).
So the directory structure that I was told I should use is as follows:
xyztesting.club files in public_html
xyz.com files in public_html/xyz.com.
For testing I'd like to have only new/changed files in public_html (i.e. for xyztesting.club) and have the browser obtain old/unchanged files from public_html/xyz.com (i.e. the production site files) for xyz.com.
So when testing new/changed files (using xyztesting.com) is there a way to tell the browser to search for files first in public_html but then if the file is not found in public_html to then look for it in public_html/xyz.com? If that is possible it seems to me that it would simplify testing and moving new/changed files into production (i.e. from public_html to public_html/xyz.com).

I hope I have been clear and thanks for taking a look at this.  I will be grateful for any help.  Thanks,  Bob

[stevenadrien]

@bobski I'm not exactly sure I understand your question.  Could you pleaseee rephrase it?

Also for the sake of context, what is your current setup?  Do you have a hosting package with each domain name setup?  

[bobski]

Hi @stevenadrien,

Thanks for your interest.  The context part is easier so I'll do that first.  I don't know if I have something called a "hosting package" but I have one account and two domain names: xyzTesting.Club and xyz.Com.  I set up the testing site first and then about a week later the "production" site was transferred to me by its previous owner/maintainer.  This resulted in a directory structure in which the files for the testing site are in public_html and the files for the production site are in public_html/xyz.com.

The testing site is not only for my testing but after I think that the new and changed stuff looks good I can ask some associates to go to xyztesting.club and give me their feedback.  

Currently I have ALL files in public_html and in public_html/xyz.com and when I am moving new/changed files from public_html to public_html/xyz.com it is easy to forget exactly which files have to be moved.  If I could have ONLY new/changed files in public_html then all I would have to do to put changes into production is more ALL files from public_html to public_html/xyz.com.  But to do that I need a way to make browsers use files from public_html but if a file is not found in public_html then to look for and use the file having the same name in public_html/xyz.com.  

I hope I have clarified things.  Thanks again for looking at this.

Bob

[stevenadrien]

Unfortunately there is no way to get browsers to search for a file in the production folder if it is not found in the testing folder 😕

My advice, to avoid not copying important files, is to copy entire folders at a time!  That way all digital assets get properly moved over