How to Unpublish a WordPress Site temporarily or definitely (2021)

No matter what type of blog you are running, there can be occasions when you want to temporarily close your tab. It could be a website that is growing that you don’t want visitors to see or a disabled site set in maintenance mode.
Whatever the reasons, there are several methods you can use to shut down your WordPress site. It is strongly recommended to position an upcoming page reminding tourists that the site has not yet been available. You can also secure the server level folders by password.
You may be shocked to see how easy it is to convert published articles, posts and the entire website into draft mode.
Let’s discover the different ways to unpublish site, pots or even pages in wordpress site.
 

Unpublish WordPress Page or Post

1. Login to the admin panel and navigate to the left column navigation.ad over to posts and pages
2. Now pick your post you want to unpublish.
3. Click to the Publish box
4. Click on the Edit, which is right next to the publish status
5. Now select Draft option from the dropdown. In the last step click the Update button.

Your WordPress post or page is now inaccessible to everyone except the website administrators and the post author. There are several other options in the Publish box which you can try to make the content private.
Edit the Visibility of the post then select Protected Password or Private. The former requires that you manually create a password for the content. See below screenshot to aid yourself.
 

Hiding Posts and Pages by User Roles

Well, the last feature is quite minimal. You are incapable of using user roles to protect pages and posts. This is where an advanced plugin for password protection comes in handy.
Password Safe WordPress (PPWP) is a must-try plugin that helps more than 2,000 WordPress users with content protection in less than 6 months and earns a 4.4-star repository rating on WordPress.
This free solution allows you to lock the content through user roles with one or more passwords. As a result, only logged-in users are allowed to open the post, entering the correct passwords. Let’s start to explore this method in a detailed way.

1. Login to the admin dashboard of wordpress. Navigate to “Plugins” option and under it, click “Add New”.
2. In the search box, type “password protect wordpress”
3. Install and active this plugin
4. Click the posts or pages you want to hide from users, and then click edit
5. In the edit section, look for PPW plugin
6. Now, select the role from the drop down
7. Enter password
8. Finally, click “submit” to update the post.

Unpublish Entire WordPress Website

You can shut down your site by discouraging the search engines from indexing it. Simply check the Visibility search engine option under your “Reading” settings of wordpress. Your website does not appear on the search results anymore.

But, wait!
WordPress masters do not recommend this approach because of its drawbacks. If it is linked from other sites your content will still be indexed. Moreover, this feature also makes Google’s review and protection of your private information more difficult.
Don’t worry, Let me tell you the most effective method to unpublish the whole site.
The above free plugin Password Protect WordPress helps secure single pages and posts, as well as the entire website. With just a few simple clicks, you can secure every page and post to your site at the same time.

1. Lands on the “Password Protect WordPress” icon in the navigation option
2. Lands on the “Entire Site” tab
3. Enable the button “Password Protect Entire Site”
4. Enter your secret password
5. Save changes

Temporarily Disabling Your WordPress Site

Install and activate the Disable Site WordPress Plugin. Now locate the “Disable Site” option in the dashboard menu. This will direct you to the settings page.

Select “Yes” under Enable Splash Page. The Custom Message area is where you type in a sentence or two to explain what’s going on to your guests. You can also get more creative with the Design Output HTML and include items like media, personalized text, and links.
Set “Yes” to admin access option. By setting authenticated user access to “No”, you can bypass the users of your site. The main reason you need to set this to yes is if any contributors or authors are required to continue their work. Otherwise, render this field No so that the splash page is not open to any users.
Now save the settings. Check your frontend for ensuring that the plugin is working properly. If not, log out from the admin account. Now go back again to the settings age and disable the splash page.
 

Putting your WordPress theme “Under-Construction Page”

 
Your WordPress theme may include an option to built-in under-construction page. The “Total” WordPress theme features to design your own custom that is coming soon or under construction using the Visual Composer builder.
With the help of “Total”, create a page you need to display. Now, navigate to “Theme Panel” and the select “Under Construction” option. Here, check the box for enabling “Under Construction” option and select page that you earlier created, and then save.
Congrats! Your theme will now display “Under Construction” to the visitors.
For removing the construction page from your site is easy. Simply uncheck the “Enable” option and save changes. That’s all!
 

Unpublishing and Hiding WordPress Posts/pages

Are you ready to hide your wordpress site from visitors?
The above methods are effective and offer a great deal for controlling over that can see your site content.
Are there any more methods that you know? Did I miss any more effective yet simple method to do so?
If yes, then comment below to share with us all.