Maintenance Mode documentation
Show visitors a branded holding page while you work. Anyone logged in still sees the live site, and Pro lets you choose between a 503 maintenance page and a 200 coming soon page.
Overview
Visitors shouldn’t see a half-finished redesign or a site mid-update. A blank or broken page also looks like an outage to search engines.
Maintenance pages need the right status code. A 503 tells Google to come back later, while a coming soon page for a new site should return 200.
Plan: Free + Pro options. The options marked Pro below need WP Extended Pro.
Setup
- Turn on Maintenance Mode under Performance & Control.
- Add your logo, headline and message, and check the preview.
- With Pro, choose maintenance or coming soon and who can see the site.
- Switch it off when you’re done. You see the live site throughout while logged in.
Settings
| Setting | What it does | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Headline Text | Enter the page headline in to the field provided. | Free |
| Headline colour | Choose headline colour. | Free |
| Body Text | Enter the body text in to the field provided. | Free |
| Body colour | Choose body colour. | Free |
| Footer Text | Enter the page footer text in to the field provided. | Free |
| Footer colour | Choose footer colour. | Free |
| Select Logo | Select a logo image for the maintenance page. | Free |
| Background Colour | Choose the base background colour for the maintenance page. | Free |
| Enable Background Image | Add an optional background image overlay. | Free |
| Background Image | Select a background image to overlay on the background colour. | Free |
| Mode | Select the maintenance mode type. | Pro |
| Layout Type | Choose how to display the maintenance page. | Pro |
| Authentication Type | Choose how to handle user access. | Pro |
| Toggle Roles | Select which roles can toggle maintenance mode on/off from the admin bar. Administrators can always toggle. | Pro |
Questions and troubleshooting
Is Maintenance Mode free?
Yes. The branded page and preview are free. WP Extended Pro adds coming soon mode, layouts and role access.
Will maintenance mode hurt my SEO?
Not for a short period. Maintenance mode returns a 503 status, which tells search engines the site is temporarily down and to come back later.
Can I still see the site while it’s in maintenance mode?
Yes. Anyone logged in sees the live site. With WP Extended Pro you can limit that to chosen roles.
It isn’t working as expected
Check the module is switched on and its settings are saved. If another plugin does the same job, deactivate one of them. Then clear any page cache and test again. Still stuck? Pro customers can contact support; free users can post on the WordPress.org forum.
Developers
Maintenance Mode has 16 hooks. See the Maintenance Mode developer reference.