Staging site

Staging site, in website design, is a website used to assemble, test and review its newer versions before it is moved into production. This phase follows the development phase. The staging phase of the software life-cycle is often tested in an environment (hardware and software) that mirrors that of the production environment. The staging site is often different from the development site, and provides a QA zone that is separate from the development and production environments. Access to it should be restricted.