How Can I Duplicate a Page in WordPress?
Duplicating a page shows up more often than you’d expect in real WordPress workflows. An agency building out a client site wants five service pages that share the exact same layout with different text. A store owner wants to test a new landing page design without touching the one that’s currently converting. Someone wants a quick backup of a page before making risky edits. WordPress itself has no native “duplicate” button anywhere in the interface, which surprises a lot of people who assume it must exist somewhere in the block editor.
This guide covers every practical way to clone a page: two plugin options, the manual copy-paste method, a code-based approach for developers, and what changes if you’re running WordPress Multisite. It also covers what actually gets copied and what doesn’t, since that trips people up more than the mechanics of duplicating itself.
What Actually Gets Duplicated (and What Doesn’t)
Before picking a method, it’s worth knowing what “duplicate” actually means in each case, because the answer isn’t the same across every approach. A plugin-based clone typically copies the title, content, featured image, page template assignment, and custom fields. It usually does not copy the original publish date (the clone gets today’s date instead), comments, or the exact same slug (WordPress appends a number to avoid a URL collision). SEO plugin data like a custom meta description sometimes copies over and sometimes doesn’t, depending on which duplication plugin you’re using and whether it’s specifically built to handle that plugin’s meta fields.
This matters because a common mistake is duplicating a page for a quick backup, then being surprised the “backup” doesn’t have identical SEO settings once you actually need to restore from it. If SEO metadata matters, check it manually after duplicating rather than assuming a clone plugin caught everything.
Method 1: Duplicate Post (Free, Most Widely Used)
Duplicate Post is the plugin most WordPress users reach for first, and for good reason: it’s been maintained for years, works with both pages and posts, and adds a one-click “Clone” link directly to the admin list view.
Setup
- Go to Plugins > Add New Plugin, search for “Duplicate Post,” install and activate it.
- Go to Settings > Duplicate Post to configure what gets copied. By default it copies the title and content, along with the excerpt and featured image, and you can toggle taxonomies, custom fields, and comments individually.
- Under the Permissions tab, you can restrict which user roles are allowed to duplicate content, useful if you don’t want every contributor cloning pages freely.
Duplicating a Page
Go to Pages > All Pages, hover over the page you want to copy, and click Clone. A new draft appears instantly with “Copy of” prepended to the title. Edit the draft as needed and publish when ready. There’s also a “New Draft” option that opens the cloned content directly in the block editor rather than just creating it in the background, which is handy if you want to start editing immediately.
Method 2: Yoast Duplicate Post (Same Core, More SEO-Aware)
Yoast’s version of this plugin (technically a fork with a related but distinct history from the original Duplicate Post) works almost identically from a user perspective, with one notable difference: it’s more consistent about carrying over SEO meta fields when Yoast SEO is also active on the site, since both plugins are built by the same team. If you’re already running Yoast SEO for your on-page optimization, this version tends to preserve meta titles and descriptions more reliably during the clone.
Setup and usage follow the same pattern: install from the plugin directory, configure what gets copied under Settings, then use the Clone link that appears on the Pages list. Don’t run both Duplicate Post and Yoast Duplicate Post active at the same time; they register overlapping functionality and can produce duplicate “Clone” links in the admin, which is more confusing than helpful.
Method 3: Manual Copy and Paste
No plugin required, and useful for a one-off duplication where you don’t want to add another item to your plugin list for something you’ll only do once.
- Open the source page in the block editor.
- Select all blocks (Ctrl/Cmd+A works inside the editor canvas, or use the three-dot menu and choose Select All).
- Copy (Ctrl/Cmd+C).
- Create a new page under Pages > Add New.
- Click into the empty content area and paste (Ctrl/Cmd+V). The block editor reconstructs the full block structure, not just the raw text, so formatting and columns, along with embedded media, generally survive the copy-paste intact.
- Manually set the featured image, page template, categories or tags if applicable, and SEO fields, since none of that travels with a copy-paste of just the content blocks.
This is the most transparent method because you can see exactly what transferred and what didn’t, which makes it a reasonable choice even for people who normally prefer plugins, specifically for pages where getting the SEO settings exactly right matters more than speed.
Method 4: Custom Code for Developers
For programmatic duplication, a bulk duplication workflow, or duplicating pages as part of a larger site-building script, a small function using WordPress’s core wp_insert_post() gives full control over exactly what gets copied:
function duplicate_page_by_id( $post_id ) {
$post = get_post( $post_id );
if ( ! $post ) {
return false;
}
$new_post_args = array(
'post_title' => $post->post_title . ' (Copy)',
'post_content' => $post->post_content,
'post_status' => 'draft',
'post_type' => $post->post_type,
'post_author' => get_current_user_id(),
);
$new_post_id = wp_insert_post( $new_post_args );
// Copy custom fields
$meta = get_post_meta( $post_id );
foreach ( $meta as $key => $values ) {
foreach ( $values as $value ) {
add_post_meta( $new_post_id, $key, maybe_unserialize( $value ) );
}
}
return $new_post_id;
}This version handles custom fields explicitly, which the basic version most tutorials show doesn’t. Add this to a custom plugin or your child theme’s functions.php, then trigger it from an admin action, a WP-CLI command, or a button you build into the admin UI. For anything beyond a single one-off duplication, wrapping this in a proper admin action with a nonce check is worth the extra few lines, since an unprotected function callable via URL is a real security gap on a production site.
Duplicating vs. Revisions vs. Reusable Blocks
Duplication is one of three ways WordPress can help you reuse or protect page content, and it’s worth knowing when each one actually fits better.
| Feature | What It’s For | Creates a New Page? |
|---|---|---|
| Duplicate a page | Starting a new, separately editable page from an existing layout | Yes |
| Post revisions (built into core) | Rolling back the same page to an earlier saved version | No, it’s version history on the same page |
| Reusable blocks / patterns | Reusing one specific section (a call-to-action, a testimonial block) across many different pages | No, the block updates everywhere it’s used when edited |
People sometimes reach for duplication when what they actually want is a reusable block. If you’re copying the same footer CTA or pricing table onto ten different pages and want to update all ten at once later, a synced pattern (found under the block editor’s pattern options) is the better tool, since editing the original updates every instance automatically. Duplication makes sense when the destination page genuinely needs to diverge from the source afterward.
Troubleshooting: Common Duplication Problems
The Clone link doesn’t appear
Check the Permissions settings under the plugin’s settings page; it’s common to accidentally restrict cloning to administrators only, which hides the link for editors and authors. Also confirm the plugin is actually active rather than just installed, since plugins that fail to activate cleanly after an update sometimes silently stop registering their admin hooks.
The cloned page is missing page builder content
This usually means the page builder (Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder) stores its layout data in a way the duplication plugin isn’t reading correctly, often after a builder update changes its internal meta key structure. Check the builder’s own documentation for a native duplicate feature first; most major page builders have added their own cloning function precisely because third-party duplication plugins don’t always handle their custom meta reliably.
Custom fields didn’t copy over
Confirm the “Copy custom fields” or equivalent option is enabled in the duplication plugin’s settings; it’s sometimes off by default to avoid duplicating fields the plugin doesn’t recognize as safe to copy. If you’re using the custom code method from Method 4, verify the get_post_meta() call is actually running by checking whether the new page has any meta fields at all in the database, since a permissions issue or a typo in the function can silently fail without an error.
Duplicated page has a broken or wrong slug
WordPress auto-generates a slug based on the “Copy of” title by default, which produces something like copy-of-services. Edit the slug manually in the page settings panel before publishing; leaving an auto-generated slug live is one of the more common small SEO mistakes with this workflow, since it produces an unpolished URL that doesn’t match your site’s usual URL conventions.
Duplicating Across a WordPress Multisite Network
Cloning a page within a single site is one problem; copying a page from one site to another inside the same Multisite network is a different one, since the standard plugins above only operate within a single site’s database tables. For that, look at a plugin built specifically for network-wide cloning, and confirm on its support page or changelog that it’s actively maintained for your WordPress version before installing it, since this is a smaller, more niche plugin category than single-site duplication and quality varies more between options.
The alternative that always works regardless of plugin support: export the page as XML through Tools > Export on the source site, switch to the target site in your network, and import it through Tools > Import > WordPress. It’s more manual, but the WordPress core export/import tooling is reliable and doesn’t depend on a third-party plugin staying maintained.
Practical Situations Where This Matters
A few real scenarios explain why this comes up so often. Agencies building multiple service pages with an identical layout duplicate a finished template page repeatedly, swapping headline, body copy, and images each time, rather than rebuilding the block structure from scratch. Store owners running seasonal promotions duplicate a working landing page, adjust the copy and offer, and keep the original untouched as a fallback. Anyone about to make a risky structural edit to an important page duplicates it first as an informal safety net, even though a proper backup plugin covers this more thoroughly.
One case worth calling out specifically: duplicating a page purely to preview a redesign. Rather than editing the live page directly and risking visitors seeing a half-finished layout, clone it, work on the draft privately, and swap the content over (or use the draft’s URL for internal review) once it’s ready. This is a cheap way to get a review workflow without a full staging environment.
Avoiding Duplicate Content Problems
If a cloned page ends up published and publicly accessible alongside the original with near-identical content, that’s a genuine SEO concern, not just a cosmetic one. Search engines can struggle to decide which version to rank, and in the worst case both versions rank worse than a single clean page would have. A few practical safeguards: keep clones as drafts until they’re meaningfully different from the source, set a canonical URL pointing to the original if a near-duplicate does need to stay live temporarily, and add a noindex tag through your SEO plugin on any test or backup copy you don’t intend for search engines to find. Rank Math and Yoast SEO both expose this as a simple toggle on the page’s SEO panel.
Best Practices
A handful of habits keep duplication from turning into admin clutter. Don’t leave dozens of “Copy of Copy of Homepage” drafts sitting around; clean them up once you’ve either published or abandoned them. If you’re duplicating specifically for SEO reasons, like reusing a converting layout for a new campaign, double-check canonical tags and meta descriptions manually rather than trusting a plugin default. And if you only need this occasionally, the manual copy-paste method avoids adding another always-active plugin to a site where every additional plugin is one more thing that can conflict with something else during an update.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does duplicating a page copy the URL slug too?
No, and it can’t, since WordPress requires unique slugs. Most duplication plugins append a number or “-2” to the original slug automatically. You’ll want to manually update the slug before publishing if the auto-generated one isn’t what you want for the final URL.
Will the duplicated page show up in my sitemap?
Only once it’s published. Drafts don’t appear in XML sitemaps generated by Rank Math, Yoast, or WordPress core. If you publish a near-duplicate page intentionally, add a noindex tag through your SEO plugin unless you specifically want both versions indexed and ranking.
Can I duplicate a page that uses a page builder like Elementor or Divi?
Yes, both Duplicate Post and Yoast Duplicate Post copy the page builder’s data along with the content, since that data is stored as post meta, which these plugins duplicate by default. The manual copy-paste method inside the block editor generally does not preserve page-builder-specific layouts built with a separate builder plugin, since those builders often bypass the standard block editor entirely.
Is there a limit to how many pages I can duplicate?
No hard limit from WordPress or the duplication plugins themselves. The practical limit is your own admin organization; hundreds of unpublished draft clones make the Pages list harder to navigate and can slow down admin queries slightly on very large sites. Clean up drafts you no longer need periodically.
Does duplicating a page duplicate its comments?
By default, no. This is usually the desired behavior since comments are specific to the original page’s context and rarely make sense on a clone. Duplicate Post has a setting to include comments if you genuinely want that, but it’s off by default and rarely what people actually want when cloning a page. Pages generally have comments disabled anyway in most WordPress setups, so this question comes up more with duplicated blog posts than duplicated pages.
What happens to the featured image when I duplicate a page?
Plugin-based duplication typically references the same media library image rather than creating a second copy of the file, so you won’t end up with duplicate files cluttering your media library. The manual copy-paste method requires you to reassign the featured image manually on the new page, since featured image assignment lives outside the content blocks themselves.
Can I schedule a duplicated page to publish automatically at a later date?
Yes. A cloned page behaves like any other draft once it’s created, so you can open it, set a future publish date under the document panel’s Status & Visibility section, and WordPress handles the scheduling exactly as it would for a page you wrote from scratch. This is useful for seasonal landing pages that reuse last year’s layout, where you duplicate the old page, update the copy, and schedule it to go live on the right date without needing to remember to publish it manually.
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