Are you searching for ways to enable or disable the maintenance mode of your website? When you want to change your website design, or when you want to update the software on your site, or else if you want to maintain the site or fix issues maintenance mode is inevitable. Without enabling maintenance mode your website may crack or lose data when your visitor visits your page. It may result in to loss of customers.
On the other hand, after you are done with updates and website maintenance you should be able to disable the maintenance mode to appear on a site as before with a positive and changed appearance or function. That is why if you have a website and need some changes or updates on your website you must always put your website in maintenance mode.
What is maintenance mode?
Maintenance mode is a state in which a website is temporarily taken offline or displays a specific page to inform visitors that the site is undergoing maintenance or updates. During this period, regular users may not have access to the full site, and instead, they see a message indicating that the website is down for maintenance. This is done to perform necessary updates, improvements, or fixes to the site without disrupting the user experience.
Using maintenance mode is a best practice to minimize disruptions and maintain a positive user experience. It’s essential for websites that require regular updates, such as security patches, software updates, themes, and plugin updates or WP version or feature enhancements. During maintenance mode, website administrators can work on improving the site without users encountering potential issues or errors. Maintenance mode is crucial for keeping systems up-to-date, secure, and efficient. It allows organizations to implement changes without causing disruptions to ongoing operations. Once the maintenance is complete, the website is brought back online for normal access.
How do you enable a website into maintenance mode?
Maintenance mode allows you to show a user-friendly notice to visitors instead of a broken website. You can also control who has access to your site while working on it. Putting a website into maintenance mode is a common practice when you need to perform updates, make changes, or fix issues without disrupting the user experience. Here goes how you can enable maintenance mode in different ways.
Use a Maintenance Page
When your website is undergoing updates or changes, a maintenance mode page is essential to keep your users informed. Create a simple HTML maintenance page. First, we need to create the HTML structure of the maintenance mode page. This structure will include a title, a message to the user, and an estimated return time. Next, use CSS to style your maintenance mode page. You can center the text, add some padding, and change the background and text colors. Then, make your maintenance page responsive.
It can be created using HTML to structure the page and CSS to style it. This page can also be responsive so that it adapts to different screen sizes, ensuring a user-friendly experience for desktop and mobile users. and next upload it to your server.
Name it something like maintenance.html or index.html. Users who access your site will see this page instead of the regular content. To enable maintenance mode via this method you should have technical skills or coding knowledge.
2. Update Server Configuration
If you have access to your web server configuration (e.g., Apache or Nginx), you can set up a redirect to the maintenance page. If you choose to enable the maintenance page via web server configuration you should install a web server. let’s take an example of an Apache web server. Install Apache server. The Apache web server comes with a default index.html file located at /var/www/html. create a new file at /var/www/html. Edit the new file and add your maintenance page code.
Install WP Maintenance Mode Plugin
Using a plugin is the best and easiest method for beginners or those with less technical skills. With just installing a maintenance mode plugin and going through some easy steps you can enable your website in a maintenance mode. They also offer readymade coming soon or maintenance mode by themselves.
You can activate maintenance mode on your WordPress website using the WP Maintenance Mode plugin. The plugin allows you to add a customizable maintenance page that lets visitors know your website/blog is down for maintenance.
The fastest and easiest way to put your WordPress website into maintenance mode is by using a plugin. This is a beginner-friendly choice that eliminates the need to edit your site’s files or work with any code.
For CMS platforms like WordPress, you can use maintenance mode plugins to easily enable and configure maintenance pages. Search for and install a maintenance mode plugin from the CMS’s plugin repository. Once the plugin is installed, configure the maintenance page settings. This usually includes adding a message, setting a timer, and selecting a design for the maintenance page.
Activate the maintenance mode through the plugin settings. This will automatically redirect visitors to the maintenance page.
Custom Code in the Application
If you have a custom-built website, you can implement maintenance mode directly in your application code. Implementing a maintenance mode in an application typically involves creating a mechanism to display a maintenance message to users while the application is temporarily unavailable.
How do you disable Website maintenance mode?
After you are done with the maintenance of your website now it is your time to disable the maintenance mode. Do you know how to disable it and come back to normal as before?
To disable website maintenance mode, you’ll need to reverse the steps you took to enable it. The specific steps may vary depending on how you implemented maintenance mode in your application.
Make sure to save the changes, restart your application if necessary, and check that the website is accessible without showing the maintenance message.
Remember that the specifics may vary depending on your application’s architecture, framework, and how you implemented maintenance mode. Always refer to your application’s documentation and codebase for accurate instructions.
How to put your specific page in maintenance mode?
Keeping only one page in a maintenance mode is also possible. Either you keep your whole website in Maintenance mode or any specific page that is up to you. The technique may not be the same when keeping maintenance mode in different ways.
Step 1. Create a page called Maintenance Mode.
Step 2. Get the page ID of the page you want to put under maintenance.
Step 3. Create a wp redirect for the page ID you just copied for all user roles that are not admins.
Put, create a redirect rule that sends all website visitors except the admin to the maintenance page when they try to access the page you are currently modifying.
Website Maintenance Mode Plugins
Plugins are said to be the best option for website maintenance and best for those who don’t know coding. Plugin is the easiest, simplest, and most user-friendly method for the website maintenance mode. It lets you create a temporary page of under maintenance or coming soon page across your entire website or on very specific pages. We have listed the top picks of website maintenance mode plugins here.
Seedprod
It is one of the popular plugins for website maintenance mode. SeedProd allows anyone to create professional and high-converting landing pages without needing any design or coding experience. The cool thing is that you get a drag-and-drop visual page builder with access to 500,000+ free stock images where you can quickly add elements to your maintenance mode notice. You will get features like Countdown timers for your maintenance page, Referral tracking for the maintenance mode, One-click import SEO-friendly page templates, Built-in email autoresponder, and many more.
CMP- Coming soon and the Maintenance plugin
You can activate your Maintenance, Coming soon(under construction), or Landing page with a single click. Customizable in many ways – you can select a layout from predefined Themes, set custom logo, background graphics (including YouTube videos or Unsplash images), custom text or graphic content, subscribe form, social networks icons, change typography, colors, SEO, and many more. Packed with functions like Whitelist/Blacklist to enable CMP only on specific pages, User Roles Management, custom URL Bypass, Translation strings, custom Subscribers option, and many more.
LightStart
Previously it was named a WP maintenance mode plugin. With the upgrade on the plugin now it is renamed LightStart which is downloaded by 7 million people these days. Activate this plugin to let your visitors know about under maintenance, add a coming soon page for a new website, or create a landing page for an existing site. Get these features with Lightstart- Maintenance mode, Coming Soon and Landing page builder; subscription form, countdown timer, coming soon page, landing page template, Exclude URLs from maintenance, and so on.
Maintenance
The maintenance plugin allows the WordPress site administrator to close the website for maintenance, enable “503 Service temporarily unavailable”, and set a temporary page with authorization, which can be edited via the plugin settings It lets you add your logo, and background image, select the desired color, add text. Maintenance uses Bunny Fonts for EU GDPR compliance. Features: Exclude selected pages from Maintenance mode, Admin bar status, retina-ready HTML/CSS layout,
Minimal coming soon -coming soon page
The Minimal Coming Soon plugin allows you to quickly & easily set up a Coming Soon Page, Maintenance Mode Page, Landing Page, or Launch Page for your website. You’ll have full control over the front end of the website and can modify almost every aspect of the Coming Soon or Maintenance Mode page per your needs. Easily connect with MailChimp API so that you can collect emails from visitors and it’s fully GDPR compliant. Features: Every element of the Coming Soon or maintenance page can be configured, Rearrange the position of the page elements to your liking – simple drag&drop, Over 800 GDPR Compatible Bunny Fonts available to fit any design, Every element of the Coming Soon or maintenance page can be configured.
Besides these, there are some more plugins you can go for that are less active and download than the plugin mentioned here. They are Slim maintenance mode, YITH maintenance mode, Coming Soon, and Maintenance Mode plugin by WP Hait. Coming soon and Maintenance mode plugin by wp Devart. All of these plugins are open source so you can get it for free.