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RankGrepDocumentation

Deploying without losing changes

How to push from Local to WP Engine, or with WP Migrate, without overwriting the fixes RankGrep applied to your live site.

Updated 17 Sept 20262 min read

On this page
  1. The rule
  2. Pushing from Local to WP Engine
  3. Getting the live content into Local
  4. Editing content
  5. Using WP Migrate instead
  6. Staging environments
  7. One surprise to expect

If you develop a site in Local and push it to WP Engine, one checkbox decides whether RankGrep's fixes survive the deploy. This page is about that checkbox.

The rule

RankGrep's fixes live in the database, not in files (why). Pushing your theme and plugins never touches them. Pushing your database replaces them with whatever your local copy holds, which is usually the values from before RankGrep fixed anything.

Pushing from Local to WP Engine

  1. In Local, open the site and click Push to WP Engine.
  2. Choose the environment.
  3. Leave Include database unticked. This is the whole trick.
  4. Push.

Your theme and plugin changes go live. The pages, titles, descriptions, headings, alt text and links on the live site stay exactly as they are, RankGrep's fixes included.

Getting the live content into Local

Before working on content locally, pull the site down with the database included: Pull from WP Engine, tick Include database. Your local copy now carries every RankGrep value, and anything you build against it starts from what is actually live.

Do this in that direction only. Pulling is safe any time. Pushing the database is the one thing to avoid.

Editing content

Make content changes on the live site, in the WordPress editor, or through RankGrep. If you edit content locally and then push the database to get it live, you lose every RankGrep fix made since the last pull.

Using WP Migrate instead

WP Migrate can push files, the database, or both. Push themes and plugins only, or media if needed. Do not push the database to the live site. Pull it instead when you want a fresh local copy.

Staging environments

A staging site is a copy. Anything RankGrep applies to production is not on staging, and promoting staging to production with its database included overwrites production. Treat a promotion exactly like a database push: pull production into staging first, or audit and re-apply afterwards.

One surprise to expect

Once a page's H1 or opening paragraph has been set by RankGrep, the theme shows RankGrep's value even if you change the hardcoded fallback text in the template and deploy it. That is by design: the helper prefers the stored value. To change that text, change it in RankGrep or clear the field in the page's RankGrep SEO panel.