This tutorial assumes that your website contains only relative links and your site resources path (images, style-sheets, etc.) are also relative. The following tips are not therefore recommended for advanced CMS like WordPress and Magento. If you want to preview a WordPress based website, I recommend you to check instead this dedicated tutorial.
cPanel Hosting
If you use a Cpanel server, and if the mod_userdir is enabled, you will be able to preview any domain installed on your server without switching the DNS. To enable the mod_userdir, log into WHM then go to Security Center >> Apache mod_userdir Tweak and uncheck Enable mod_userdir Protection.
If you use a shared hosting, you can see your the temporary Cpanel link in the welcome email. If not, you can find it out yourself by using the pattern http://123.456.7.89/~username, where 123.456.7.89 is your server IP and username is your cpanel username.
As stated above, this method doesn’t work for WordPress site. If you are on WordPress, use NoDns I/O website preview instead.
Parralel Plesk hosting
Provided that Quick Preview is enabled on your Plesk hosting account, you can associate your website with temporary preview link by proceeding as follows:
- Go to Tools & Settings > Website Preview Settings
- Click on Create New Domain and add your domain
- Return to Tools & Settings
- Select the new domain and
- Click on the Quick Preview
GoDaddy Hosting
GoDaddy hosting comes with builtin preview tool. To create a preview, do the following:
- Go to the Web Hosting manager
- Find the Server Details section and select Show Details
- Click on the Preview to see your domain’s DNS data
- Click on the Enable button (or Renew button) to activate the preview
- Click Preview to see your site. The preview link will be like www.yourwebsite.com.previewdns.com
Any hosting
Whichever your hosting provider, you can also use the NoDNS I/O platform to instantly create a preview of your under development website. You will simply need to provide your server IP and your chosen domain name to make your preview live.
