Sometimes you'll want to put up an "under construction" sign, or even make your site invisible, while you make big upgrades to the content (or just run experiments). Here are a couple of choices:

Placing an "Under Construction" sign

If you want to tell visitors that the site is under construction (or send some more creative message), but not deny access to the site, you only need to place a message on the front page. Create a Blog Entry, Page, or other appropriate node, and follow the instructions for having it appear among other nodes on your front page (or even make it the sole node on your front page).

• Creating Content
• Setting the Front Page

Taking the site down for maintenance

Your site has a nifty feature for taking your site offline, with no access to its content – nothing but a single message to greet visitors. The setting is here:

Navigation » Administer » Site configuration » Site maintenance

Things couldn't be easier: write the message the visitors will see, select 'Off-line', and click 'Save configuration'. Visitors will see only the off-line message; you, logged in as an administrator, can still view and work with the site normally. (Even if you log off, you can later log in normally using the login page: <your site domain>/user .)

• Logging In