How to Change Existing Site to Wordpress

install wordpress into a sub folder on your site (like http:// .......com/wordpress/) when you are ready you can move the site to the main directory and change the info in wp-config.php to reflect this. This way you will have your main site still available while you work on your wordpress one.

Darren

Thanks Darren! That makes perfect sense. I should've been been able to figure that out. Not sure why, but I still get intimidated by Wordpress.

SK,

Darren is correct.

However, there is an easier solution. Before you install wordpress, rename the current index.php file in your root directory to something else. If you have index.htm, html, or whatever you don't need to change. I would change it to "notwp_index.php" or something like that. You rename it because wp will over write the index.php file if it is there.

Do the wp install.

Once the install is done. Go back and rename the index.php file that WP wrote to something like wp_index.php and then rename your old index.php back to index.php. You must rename WP's index.php regardless of what extension your old index file was. You don't want 2 index.??? files in your root.

Now your visitors will see your old index file when they navigate to your site. And you will know that you need to navigate to wp_index.php to work on the WP version.

Once you've completed the WP site and are ready to publish. Just delete or rename your original index.???. Then rename your wp_index.php back to index.php.

Also note that almost all wp files have the wp prefix. So I wouldn't be too concerned with duplicate files other than your index file.

Hope this helps.

Note: I've not done this since WP 2.1, but it should still work. WP's file structure hasn't changed that much.

Take Care,
Gene