There are occasions when you might want to put your blog in "maintenance mode." It's likely you've already come across sites in maintenance mode but here are the basics…and when you might want to utilize maintenance mode on your own site.
What is maintenance mode?
Well, if your site is in maintenance mode, when someone from the outside world lands on your page, they'll see something like this:
When would you use maintenance mode?
Maintenance mode comes is handy if:
- You are making a lot of changes to your design or you're updating and you don't want anyone to see the wonkiness while you make the changes (use sparingly so you don't frustrate your readers with an inaccessible website too often).
- Something goes wrong on your site and you want to quickly shield it from the outside world.
- You have a brand new site and are still getting it up and running. In other words, it's "under construction."
- You have a demo site where you can experiment and tweak and it's not a blog intended for the public.
How do you put your site in maintenance mode?
I recently set up a demo site and here's a video walking you through the steps.
Can't see the video? Watch it here.
Video Notes
- I'm using the WP Maintenance Mode plugin which you can find by going to Dashboard –> Plugins –> Add New –> "maintenace" in the search field.
- Activate the plugin (although this doesn't activate maintenance mode, but just the plugin itself).
- To put your blog in maintenance mode (therefore making the maintenance mode screen appear) you must configure Settings by clicking the "Settings" link underneath the plugin title in your Installed Plugins screen. Specifically, "Plugin Activate" must be set to "True" (the first dropdown menu you see after clicking "Settings").
- Then, configure the fields you like. For my demo site, I changed "Title," "Heading" and "Text." Save your changes!
Here at BloggingWithAmy you'll find tips, tools & tutorials about blogging and websites. In plain English. Want to 
Brilliant! I don't often work on the blog but each time I have someone has gone in & panicked that I was no longer blogging! Many thanks Amy!
I don't think anyone would "panic" if they came across my site when it wasn't working properly, lol, but I wouldn't want to lose any first time readers who may think that my link is invalid. Thanks so much for this!
You're welcome!
I never knew about maintenance mode – thanks so much for explaining it so clearly!)
Amy – how do you decide what plugins to use and which to avoid? I know in one of your previous posts you mentioned that they can be buggy.
There are so many fun ones, but I don't want to mess up my blog!
Yes, if I can avoid a plugin I do due to the buggy factor and loading speed. I only use plugins that provide a significant benefit to the functionality of my blog—functionality for my readers or for me. You're right, there are a lot of fun plugins, but unless they have a "oh my goodness this makes blogging so much easier!" I stay away from them.
Amy, Thanks for helping me figure out how to make a blog button and telling me about the existence of Picnik! For those reasons, I am passing a little blogger award on to you. It's in my Rolo Cookies post today. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Thank you so much!
I saw you mention "Demo Site" here and you reminded of a huge mistake I'd made in the past -
Making major new changes and adding new plug-ins to my main money making site instead of feeling it out first with a test site.
This has led to us spending like 20 hours trying to figure out what plug-in was cranking up the wonkiness to level 11. I hope everyone following you here heeds your wisdom and always feels out changes on a test site instead of their bread winner.
Ah yes, a demo site is a wonderful thing!
Love it! Transferring to my own domain and have plenty of work to do before the site goes public. Thanks for sharing this!