Two identical notebook pages side by side representing a duplicated WordPress page

How to Duplicate a Page in WordPress Without Breaking the Original

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TLDR

The fastest way to duplicate a page in WordPress is the free Yoast Duplicate Post plugin: install, activate, hover the page in the admin list, click “Clone”. Done in under ten seconds. The built-in block editor also has a copy-all-blocks option if you prefer no extra plugins, and developers can add a one-click duplicate button to the admin with a short code snippet.

This post covers all three routes, the mistakes beginners make when they copy the wrong thing, and a short exercise to practise cloning a page on your own site so you are ready before the next redesign lands.

Duplicating a WordPress page sounds trivial and mostly is. Where people trip up is when they copy the content of a page, paste it into a new page, and realise the images, the SEO settings, the page builder layout, or the custom fields did not come along for the ride.

This post shows the three reliable ways to do it properly, so the clone is a real copy and not a half-empty shell.

Why duplicate a page in the first place?

A handful of real-world reasons we see weekly:

  • You are redesigning a page and want to keep the original live while you work on the new version.
  • You are rolling out a new landing page for a different service and the existing layout is a good starting point.
  • You are A/B testing two headlines and need two near-identical pages to send traffic to.
  • You are moving a page to a new URL and need a copy to edit before deleting the original.

Method one: the plugin route (recommended)

The simplest and most reliable option. Yoast Duplicate Post (free, four million-plus active installs) handles posts, pages, custom post types, featured images, SEO meta, custom fields, and taxonomies in one click.

  1. In the WordPress admin, go to Plugins, Add New.
  2. Search for “Yoast Duplicate Post”. Install and activate.
  3. Go to Pages, All Pages. Hover over the page you want to duplicate.
  4. Click Clone for a silent copy, or New Draft to open the copy in the editor.
  5. The copy appears in the list with (Copy) in the title, in draft status, ready to edit.

In Settings, Duplicate Post you can choose which fields copy across, add a prefix or suffix to the clone’s title, and restrict who can duplicate. For most sites the defaults are right.

Method two: the built-in block editor route

No plugin, two minutes. Works if you only need to copy content, and you are comfortable redoing the SEO fields and featured image.

  1. Open the page you want to duplicate in the block editor.
  2. Click the three-dot menu in the top right corner.
  3. Choose Copy all blocks. (Or press Ctrl+A to select all, then Ctrl+C.)
  4. Create a new page, click into the editor area, and press Ctrl+V.
  5. Give the new page its title, set its featured image, fill in SEO fields, and save as draft.

Common mistakes beginners make here

  • Copying just the body text and forgetting the SEO meta. Plugin method handles this, manual copy does not.
  • Duplicating a page built in a page builder (Elementor, Divi, Beaver) without the plugin. The block copy strips the builder data. Always use Duplicate Post for page-builder pages.
  • Publishing the clone without changing the slug. WordPress will append -2 automatically, which is rarely what you want. Always set the final slug yourself.
  • Leaving two live pages with near-identical content. Google treats that as duplicate content. Either noindex the clone until it is ready, or redirect the old one when the new one goes live.
Two page icons with a copy arrow between them, representing a duplicate action
One click, two pages. That is the whole job.

Method three: the code snippet route

If you do not want another plugin, a small snippet in a child theme’s functions.php adds a Duplicate link to the page list. The code below covers the basics: title, content, excerpt, author, status, and featured image.

The WordPress community has maintained the official Duplicate Post plugin for more than a decade, and for most sites reading its source is easier than reinventing it. If you genuinely need a code-only approach, that plugin’s GitHub repository is the cleanest starting point.

About the author

Josh Morley has spent over a decade solving WordPress problems for real client sites. He runs the Marketing The Change agency out of Liverpool, is on Codeable since 2015, and has delivered more than 2,440 WordPress and WooCommerce projects with a 4.92 / 5 average rating.

★★★★★

“Josh is excellent. Very easy to work with and very skilled.”

Caroline S. · Small website fix · 26 Feb
★★★★★

“Josh was brilliant, he understood that it was a simple but irritating task I really needed doing quickly and he was quick to estimate the job and very quick to complete it too. Loved it.”

Louisa W. · Awards Rejig · 04 Jan

After you duplicate: the four things to change

  • The URL slug. /about-copy/ is not the URL you want live.
  • The SEO title and meta description. They should be unique per page. Google demotes pages that share them.
  • The featured image. If the new page is about a different topic, a different image reinforces it.
  • Any internal links pointing at the old page. If you intend to replace the original, update those links to the new URL to avoid losing authority.

Try it yourself this week

Practise the clone on a low-stakes page before you need it for real.

  1. Install Yoast Duplicate Post on a staging copy of your site, or a test WordPress install.
  2. Pick an old “About” or “Services” page.
  3. Hover the page in the admin list and click “Clone”. Confirm the copy appears in draft.
  4. Open the copy, change the slug, change the SEO fields, update the featured image. Publish to a private URL and verify it renders as expected.

Three minutes of practice saves the heart-sink moment when you realise the page you cloned for a new service has inherited the old service’s schema data.

Prefer a human to help?

If the steps above are not enough, or you are short on time, the team behind WP Clipboard runs a Liverpool WordPress agency that has been fixing sites for small businesses and charities since 2012. Fixed-price quotes, no long tie-in.

Visit Marketing The Change

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I duplicate a page in WordPress without a plugin?

Yes, the block editor’s Copy All Blocks option handles most cases. The catch is that it only copies the body blocks. SEO settings, featured image, custom fields and page-builder data do not come across. For anything beyond simple text pages, a plugin like Yoast Duplicate Post is almost always worth the thirty seconds to install.

Will the duplicated page inherit the original’s SEO rankings?

No, not directly. A new URL starts with no history. If you plan to replace the original and want to keep the rankings, publish the new page at a new URL, then set a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. Google transfers most of the earned authority across a clean 301.

Does cloning a page copy its comments?

Yoast Duplicate Post lets you choose. By default, comments are not copied, which is usually what you want. If you need them (for example, cloning a popular blog post for a redesign), toggle the option in Settings, Duplicate Post.

Can I clone a whole site, not just a page?

Yes, but you need a different tool. Plugins like All-in-One WP Migration or Duplicator package a full site into a single file you can restore onto a new domain. Use those for full site clones, use Duplicate Post for single pages.

Will duplicating a page affect my Google indexing?

Only if you publish both copies live with identical content. As a draft, the clone is invisible to Google. Before publishing, change either the content (if you want both live) or set the clone to noindex until it is ready to replace the original.