WordPress is a powerful content management system. However, it misses some basic functions as a core feature. Cloning or duplicating a post is one of the simple functions not available in WordPress. In this article, we will explain how to clone or duplicate posts, pages, products and custom post types in WordPress site.
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Why You Need to Duplicate a Post?
There could be many situations for duplicating the content of a post.
- Editing and updating a lengthy article is a pain in WordPress. Since the article was already published, you have no option to keep your updates offline. For example, if updating an article needs 5 hours, you have to spend 5 hours in one stretch to update the content. There are no options to do partial update offline and release the full update later. Duplicating a post helps you to keep a backup of posts / pages on your site. You can continue to update the content on duplicated post in draft mode without touching the published article. Once done, you can copy the updated content to published article. In this manner, you can focus on the update without time pressure as you can keep the partial update offline with duplicated post.
- Post templates are useful way to create uniform articles that has similar structure. You can keep a master template and duplicate it to add content for each article.
- You may have similar products to sell (example – website themes or templates). In such a case, you can easily duplicate one product and do the minor update to change attributes/content and publish it with a different product name.
- Having a custom portfolio or other template can help you to produce mass content quickly.
In summary, you can use duplicate function to design your workflow. It is easy to keep a template to modify the content and publish it as a new post, page or product. This will drastically save your time especially when you want to create thousands of blog posts with similar structure. In addition, it is also a good practice to keep a single design style for your post structure for better readability.
How to Duplicate Posts in WordPress?
WordPress has plugin for everything and there are multiple plugins available for content duplication as well.
- Login to your admin panel and navigate to “Plugins > Add New” section.
- Search for “clone” or “duplicate” keyword to filter relevant plugins from the repository.
- Install and activate Yoast Duplicate Post plugin.
As the name indicates, the plugin is from the team Yoast who developed the most popular Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress.
Why Yoast Duplicate Post Plugin?
Below are the reasons for using Duplicate Post plugin from Yoast.
- It has more than 3 million active installation with almost 5 star rating from 400+ users.
- The plugin supports all post types including custom ones.
- Offers single and bulk edit options.
- It works seamlessly with Yoast SEO and duplicates Yoast SEO meta box content like title and meta description.
- You can clone the entire post with single click including featured image, categories and tags.
- It is possible to know the relationship between the original and copied post.
- The plugin is completely free and updated regularly.
Customizing Duplicate Post Plugin
After activating the plugin on your site, go to “Settings > Duplicate Post” menu. You can see three tabs in the settings page.
What to copy Tab
This section allows you to customize the followings:
- Choose the elements to copy like title, featured image, author, date, etc. You can disable the elements that you do not want to be part of the duplicated post.
- Add prefix / suffix to the copied post title. For example, you can add “Duplicate of” to add this prefix with any cloned post. This will help you to differentiate the original and duplicated posts easily.
- Add the meta fields to ignore while copying.
- Select the taxonomies to ignore while copying.
Permissions Tab
This section allows you to decide which roles are allowed to use the cloning function and enable the post types to use the feature.
Display Tab
Under display section you can configure where the duplicate post link should be shown. You have multiple options to show it in the post list page, on the editor, admin bar and in bulk actions. You have also an option to show the original post link in the editor and post list page.
After configuring, save all your changes to start using the plugin.
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Clone and New Draft
The plugin offers two functions – Clone and New Draft. Cloning allows you to create a copy of single or multiple posts and return to the post list page. However, new draft will create a copy of single post and go to the post editor section. As mentioned above, you can duplicate post, page, product and any other custom post type you use and enabled the feature under “Permissions” tab.
Cloning Bulk Posts
If you want to clone bulk posts, go to “Posts > All Posts” section. Select the posts you want to clone and click on the “Bulk actions” dropdown. Choose “Clone” option and click on “Apply” button.
The plugin will instantly clone all the selected posts. You will be on the same page, look for the prefix order you have added in the settings like “Copy of…” or “Duplicate of…” to find the copied posts. If you struggle to find the cloned posts, we recommend you to only use “Title suffix” option in “What to copy” plugin settings. In this way, you can find the clones posts immediately below the original posts after cloning.
As you can see the newly cloned posts are in draft mode with the relationship link to original post. There is also a “Original item” column under which you can see the link to original post.
Remember, you can’t use bulk function with “New Draft” as this will take you to the individual post editor screen.
Cloning or New Draft for Single Post
When you are on the post or page list, hover the mouse over any article to view the options. The plugin will add two new features – “Clone” and “New Draft”. Click on the clone to duplicate the article and stay on the same list page.
Clicking on the new draft will take you to the editor thus allowing you to modify and publish the content immediately. After updating the content, you can delete the reference to the original item and publish it as a new post.
You can also use the admin bar link to create a new draft, if you have enabled the admin bar option under “Display” tab of the plugin’s settings page.
Other Options – Copy Paste
For any reason if you do not want to use this plugin, alternate option is to copy and paste the content on the original post to a new post. You can do this by going to three dots button on top of the Gutenberg editor and selecting “Code Editor” option. Now, you can copy the entire code and paste on a new page. WordPress will automatically convert this code into content.
However, you have to manually copy meta details, taxonomies and featured image. It is also possible to create reusable templates in Gutenberg editor.
Final Words
If you are using cloning as part of your workflow or on regular basis, then using the plugin will save lots of time. Though it is safe to use, make sure you do not publish duplicate posts without updating the content. Having duplicate content on different pages will affect the ranking of your page in search engines. Therefore, make sure to add unique content on cloned/duplicated posts before publishing them.
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