In this article, we’ll explain what a Temporary URL (Temp URL) is, when it is best to use it, and how you can create it from your WPX Hosting panel.
What is Temp URL?
A temp URL is a temporary URL that allows you to access your website using WPX’s randomly generated URL instead of your domain name. This can be helpful if your domain name is not yet fully propagated or if you’re testing changes on your website before going live.
The URL created for your website will have a unique string of letters and numbers in the subdomain section and will be hosted under the domain name wpxtemp.com.
For example 517b0158ecb8e616b5ea4e5846872a7d.wpxtemp.com
The URLs are not indexed by bots and cannot harm the SEO of your website as it is not related to it in any way. The same applies to staging environment URLs.
When it’s best to use a Temp URL?
Temporary URLs are used only for previewing websites without the need of pointing the actual domain to WPX. You can share the temporary URL with your friends or colleagues if you need their approval or opinion on the website before you make it live.
Don’t use Temp URL for the following actions:
1. Speed Testing – The Temporary URL cannot be tested by speed testing tools and it will not show proper results regarding speed and website performance.
2. Website Editing – Temp URL will show the website loading from WPX servers only for preview purposes. Do not use this URL to edit anything on your website because this may cause the live site to break when the Temp URL expires.
How to create a Temp URL?
You can use a Temporary URL for every website that is hosted with WPX. Follow the steps below to create your Temp URL to preview your website hosted with WPX.
Step 1. Log in to your WPX account
You can log in to your WPX account here.
Step 2. Navigate to your hosting plan
You can either find your hosting service through the navigation menu or within your dashboard. Once you log in to your WPX account select My Services (1) → WordPress Hosting (2).
Then you will see all of your hosting services with us. When you find the plan that you want to manage, you need to select the orange button Manage service.
Step 3. Create Temp URL
Now that you’re in the Hosting Panel, select Manage Websites (1) → Create Temp URL(2).
A popup window will appear on your screen where you can select the website that you need to use under the temporary URL.
To generate the Temp URL, first, select the website from the dropdown menu (1). Then, choose when you want the Temp URL to be automatically disabled (2). By default, the temporary URL will be created and remain active for 1 hour. You can tweak that from the slider as shown in the screenshot below.
Once you have finalized the settings, click on the Create button (4).
You can also manually disable the Temp URL by clicking on the purple Disable button.
The temporary URL will not take up from your websites’ slots.
And also there are no limitations on how many times you can use it for a certain website.
A new popup window will appear with your new Temp URL. Make sure to bookmark it or save it somewhere because there is no way to find it later.
If you lose it or don’t remember it, no worries, just re-create it by following the guide from Step 1.
That’s it! You can now preview your site, using the WPX Temp URL feature.
If you get stuck with anything discussed on this page, please get in touch with the WPX Support Team via live chat (use the bottom right-hand widget) and they will respond and help within 30 seconds or less.