Duplicating or republishing an existing WordPress page or post is a great way to save hassle. We often already have a post with the format we want, such as headings, lists, tables, or other elements. Cloning those posts gives us a template so we don’t have to start from scratch every time. 

Similarly, we can incorporate new content into our published post without affecting its credibility. That’s when republishing comes into use. And it’s easier to duplicate and republish a WordPress page than you think. 

In this article, we’ll look at a step-by-step procedure to duplicate and republish pages and posts using a WordPress plugin. We’ll also see how to duplicate a Divi page or post towards the end of this article.

Duplicate Post Plugin

Yoast Duplicate Post Plugin for WordPress

There are lots of good plugins to clone pages and posts. But no plugin has come close to the popular WordPress plugin – the Yoast Duplicate Post plugin. It’s a free plugin with over 4 million active installs and a 5-star rating. Once you learn how to use it, rewriting and republishing a page or post won’t be a task. 

First, let’s start by downloading this plugin.

To install the Duplicate Post Plugin, head to the plugin option in the sidebar of your WordPress Dashboard. Select ‘Add New’ from the drop-down menu — type‘ Yoast Duplicate Post’ in the search bar and click ‘Install Now’. Once installed, make sure to activate the plugin.

Install and Activate the Yoast Duplicate Post Plugin

Once you’ve activated Duplicate Post, a new menu is added to the dashboard. Go to Settings > Duplicate Post. Here, you can choose what to copy, set user permissions, and determine where to show the clone links.

Duplicate Post Settings

In the What to Copy tab, choose the post and page elements such as the title, meta, excerpt, content, template, featured image, author, password, menu order, etc. You can also set the title prefix and suffix, increase the menu order by a specific amount, enter fields not to copy, and choose which taxonomies should not be copied.

Permissions Settings in the Duplicate Post Window

The Permissions tab lets you choose which roles are allowed to copy. You can also enable the post types. It will even clone Gutenberg Blocks.

Display Settings in the Duplicate Post Window

The Display tab lets you select where the links will show. Choose post list, edit screen, Admin bar, and bulk actions.

Cloning a WordPress Page or Post

Clone a WordPress Page or Post

In your page or post list, a couple of new cloning options are added to the editing tools when you hover over the title. 

1. Cloning

Cloning creates an exact duplicate and adds it to this list. This is a good choice if you want to copy in bulk or return later to work on the page or post.

Clicking Clone adds a copy as a draft.

Create a Draft for the Duplicate Page

You can also duplicate the posts or pages in bulk. Here, I’ve selected the posts I wanted to duplicate and clicked ‘Clone’ from the drop-down menu in the Bulk Actions option. This way I can duplicate all the posts or pages at once.

Bulk Clone the pages or post

I now have a list of drafts that I can edit whenever I want to.

Bulk Action to Create Duplicate Pages 

Rewrite & Republish

Rewrite & Republish duplicates the page or post automatically and opens it directly in the post editor where you can start to edit right away. 

Post Editor for Republishing

Selecting Rewrite & Republish opens the draft so you can directly edit it. It’s the duplicate version that the plugin creates automatically.

Before understanding how the changes will be made in the post, let’s look at another way of rewriting and republishing the post.

First, open up the original post you want to duplicate from the ‘All Posts’ window. In the post editor, you’ll find an option Duplicate Post in the toolbar at the top of the screen. Upon clicking it, you’ll see a ‘Rewrite & Republish’ option in the drop-down menu. Once you click it, the page will reload. This is a duplicate page that the plugin automatically creates, allowing you to make changes without affecting the original published post.

Enabling the Duplicate Post option from the Toolbar

Republishing the Updated Content 

Let’s suppose I added the following line in the duplicate post. Now, I want to merge this with my original post that’s already published.

Modifying the text in the duplicate post

All you need to do is hit the Republish button in the right corner of the screen. The updated content in this duplicate post will merge with the original post.

Republishing the WordPress post

Compare the Updated Content 

If you want to view the changes you’ve made throughout the post – it’s easy. You can easily compare the old version with the new one with this Yoast Duplicate Posts plugin. Simply click on the ‘Save changes and compare button’ appearing in the right sidebar and see what happens. 

Compare Changes with Save Changes and Compare Option

A revision screen will open up where you can compare all the changes made side by side. The changes will be highlighted in green as you can see below. The new text that we added is marked in green.

A Revision Screen with All the Changes Made

Cloning a Divi Page or Post with a Duplicate Post

Cloning a Divi Page or Post with a Duplicate Post

The cloning tool also works the same for Divi. This is a handy way to clone Divi posts or pages in bulk.

Duplicate Divi Post

Cloning with the Duplicate Post is as simple with Divi as it is for the classic editor and the Gutenberg editor– it includes all of the extra settings that you’ve included in its options. The cloned page includes the featured image, excerpt, and page attributes.

Cloning a Divi Page or Post with the Divi Visual Builder

Cloning a Divi Page or Post with the Divi Visual Builder

If you’re creating a new page or post in Divi and you don’t need the page attributes you can also use the cloning feature that Elegant Themes have added to Divi. There’s no plugin needed for this to work.

Create a new post or page and then choose to use the Divi Builder. If you’re using Gutenberg, when you choose the Divi Builder you’ll automatically be taken to the Visual Builder where you can work from the frontend.

Enabling Visual Builder

If you’re using the classic WordPress editor, choose the Divi Builder and then choose Visual Editor. Next, choose Clone Existing Page.

Layout Library Loaded

All the pages, posts, and projects saved in the library have been loaded. Here, you can search for any page, select the category (pages, posts, or projects), or even simply select the view mode. If your pages include featured images they will show on this screen. You can also choose a premade layout or a saved layout. This is an excellent way to convert any page, post, or project to a different post type.

You now have a duplicate that you can edit. This duplicate will only include the layout. It will not include the featured image, template, page order, etc. This is a great way to copy or convert a page or post, but if you need any of the other settings then using the Duplicate Post plugin is a better option.

Don’t Publish Duplicated Content

Cloning a page or post is a great way to get a head start on creating content, but make sure you don’t publish content that you’ve already published. It’s bad for SEO. Google shows that it’s best to avoid duplicating content or adding Canonical tags when you need to duplicate a page. Use this as a template for your content’s structure. If you need to use the same information, consider rewording it so it isn’t the same.

Ending Thoughts

Duplicating a post is very helpful if you want to republish the original post, or use it as a template for other posts or pages. It’s an easy way to speed up your process, create content faster, and copy pages with a similar format. You could even create and clone a library of content types as needed. The Duplicate Post plugin keeps all of the extra settings and gives you full control over what gets cloned. This can save time because you start with the structure and settings you already need.

Have you tried Duplicate Post to clone your posts or pages? Let us know what you think about it in the comments.