Creating a compelling and effective WordPress site requires both effort and time — site owners first need to do their research on search engine optimization (SEO) and ensure they’re targeting the right market, then create content that’s relevant, accurate, and engaging.
So it’s no surprise that many WordPress site owners aren’t excited about doing more work than necessary, especially if there are easier and faster ways to get the same results. Consider page and post duplication: If you’ve got content that’s performing well, it’s often worthwhile to revise or repurpose this content for another post.
The challenge? Quickly and accurately duplicating this content to save time and effort. In this piece, we’ll explore why you might want to duplicate pages, how to both duplicate and remove pages manually, and what must-have WordPress plugins are available to streamline the process.
What is a Duplicate Page in WordPress — and Why Would I Need One?
A duplicate page is exactly what it sounds like: It’s a carbon copy of the original post on a new WordPress page that you can edit without impacting the original.
When it comes to duplicating a WordPress page, there are two common scenarios where this method makes more sense than creating a new page and post:
- The core of your content isn’t changing — Let’s say you’ve created a great page containing relevant statistics for your target market. These might include superlatives about your own company, satisfaction issues faced by your target market at large or even sales figures that showcase your site’s unique value proposition. If these statistics remain relevant and you have no plans to update them in the near future, it’s typically not worth the time to create an entirely new post and retype all this data line by line. Instead, you’re often better served by duplicating the entire page and tweaking it as necessary to create a new piece of content.
- You’re not done editing the original — Effective websites are always editing pages to optimize for content. A HubSpot blogs survey found that optimizing new and existing content for search intent is the most effective SEO strategy.
When editing pages, your new content will be a work in progress. In this case, you may not be sure about what the final product will look like, but you don’t want to lose the form and framework of your current version, especially if, after editing, you decide the original is better overall. Here, a duplicate page lets you edit the post without any risk of compromising the original and lets you delete the duplicate without fear of losing the original data.
How to Duplicate a Page Manually in WordPress
If you’re looking to duplicate a single page in WordPress, using the native functionality offered by this popular CMS is often good enough. Here’s how it works.
First, log in to your WordPress account and click on the page you’d like to duplicate. Make sure the “Page” rather than “Block” option is selected in the right-hand sidebar to copy everything on the page — otherwise, you’ll only copy whatever content is in the selected block.
Next, click on the three stacked dots at the top of the right-hand side menu. Look for the option at the bottom of the drop-down menu that reads “Copy all blocks”. If the text changes to “Copied!” after you click, you know the first part of the duplication process was successful.
Now, navigate to “View Posts” and select “Add New Post”. Then, give your post a title, and once you’re in the content block either right-click and select “Paste” from the menu that appears or use Ctrl + V on your keyboard to copy your WordPress page. In effect, this manual method is the same copy-and-paste process used in popular word processors, but it’s a straightforward way to copy a single page.
How do I Remove Duplicate Pages in WordPress?
If you’re looking to remove duplicate pages in WordPress the process is simple. First, select the “Pages” option on the right-hand side of your WordPress admin screen, then select the page you want to delete.
You’ll see several options including “Edit”, “Quick Edit” and “Trash” — select “Trash” to remove the page and send it to the WordPress Trash bin. In practice, this means the page is not immediately deleted, since it can still be accessed using the horizontal menu that appears above the list of your current WordPress pages.
To permanently delete the page, navigate to the Trash folder in the menu bar next to 'Published', 'Drafts', 'Scheduled', and select “Delete Permanently” for the relevant page.
If you realize you’ve made a mistake and don’t want to remove the page, select “Restore” and the page will shift back to its original status as either Published or Draft.
Overall, the process to remove a page is straightforward and there are very few downsides — even if you permanently delete a duplicate page you can re-copy and recreate it from the original.
WordPress Duplicate Page Plugins
We’ve explored how to copy a single WordPress page and how to delete pages as needed. But what happens if you’re copying multiple pages at once? While it’s possible to take on the task of copying each page individually this requires a substantial amount of time and effort — time and effort better-spent creating new content for your site or improving your SEO.
The solution to speedy page duplication? WordPress plugins. Let’s look at a few options.
1. Duplicate Post Plugin
The Duplicate Post Plugin does exactly what it says — lets you duplicate a post or page, in addition to duplicating other content such as comments, slugs or menu orders. Simply install and activate the plugin, then head to Pages → All Pages. When you hover over a page, two new options will appear alongside familiar functions: “Clone” and “New Draft”.
Selecting Clone will duplicate the current post, while New Draft will create a clone and open it in your WordPress post editor. This plugin also lets you give cloned pages prefixes or suffixes, such as “copy of” or “duplicate” so you know which is which.
2. Duplicate Page and Post
Duplicate Page and Post offers similar functionality. First, go to your All Pages or All Posts menu, select the page you want and click “Duplicate”. The new page will appear as a draft in your pages menu with the same name as your original, allowing you to quickly edit or rename it.
While this plugin doesn’t offer the same depth of features and functions as some other duplication tools it has the advantage of lightweight code that delivers extremely fast page and post duplication.
3. Post Duplicator
Post Duplicator is all about simplicity. Find the page you want to duplicate, click “Duplicate Page” and a new copy of the original page is created. Depending on your preferences, you can set the page status of your duplicated page from Post Duplicator’s Tools menu — choose to have duplicate pages published by default, move to draft status or keep the same status as the original.
Doubling Down
Duplicating WordPress pages and posts can help reduce the amount of redundant work needed to manage content on your WordPress website. This function is especially useful if you’re looking to repurpose evergreen content or create a new post using current data as its foundation.
And while it’s possible to double down using manual processes native to the WordPress platform itself, these are best used for single-post duplications or deletions. If you’re looking to quickly duplicate multiple pages and ensure they’re differentiated to make editing easier, WordPress plugins are your best bet.
