Site status & visibility
Whether your site is reachable, and by whom, is controlled in one place: Settings > Access & Visibility.
Site status
| Status | What visitors get |
|---|---|
| Live | The site, normally. |
| Draft | A "coming soon" page, with your own Coming soon message. |
| Maintenance | A maintenance page. For a planned change, when you would rather explain than show a half-finished site. |
| Archived | Taken offline - the address returns "not found". |
Draft and Maintenance look similar to a visitor but read differently: one says not yet, the other says back shortly. Pick the one that is true.
Site privacy
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Public | Anyone can view. |
| Password protected | Visitors must enter a password you set before they see anything. |
Password protection covers the whole site. To lock a single page instead, use Require a password in that page's settings - see Pages & menus.
It is genuinely useful for showing work to a client, or keeping a site private while you build it - and much better than leaving a live site half-finished.
Geo access
Restrict by country: No country restrictions, Block selected countries, or Allow only
selected countries. Countries are entered as two-letter ISO codes, comma-separated - US, CA, GB.
Use Allow when you only serve certain places, and Block to shut out a source of spam or fraud. Allow is the stricter of the two: anything not listed is refused, including you if you travel.
Good to know
- Private sites and geo controls are premium features - see What each plan includes.
- Status is not the same as publishing. A Live site still shows only the pages you have published - see Publish your site.
- Archived returns a not-found page, which search engines will eventually act on. Use Draft or Maintenance for a temporary absence.