How to Unpublish WordPress Site

If you are wondering “how to unpublish WordPress site” so visitors can’t see it for a while, you are not alone. Maybe you are redesigning everything, fixing a hacked site, or just not ready to go live yet, but you don’t want to delete your work.

The good news is that you can hide your WordPress site in several ways: maintenance mode, password protection, search engine privacy, or even making the whole site private — without losing your content or ruining your SEO.

In this guide, you will learn different ways to unpublish a WordPress site temporarily (or longer term), when to use each method, and what to watch out for before you flip the switch.

What Does It Mean to Unpublish a WordPress Site?

Unpublishing your WordPress site usually means one of these:

• Hiding it from visitors while you work on changes.
• Blocking search engines from indexing your pages.
• Restricting access to certain users (for example, logged-in members or admins only).
• Taking it completely offline by disabling the site or domain.

Which method you choose depends on your goal. Do you still want to see the site while you work? Do you want clients to preview it? Or do you want it totally invisible to everyone?

Before You Unpublish: Back Up Your WordPress Site

Before you unpublish or take anything offline, always create a backup of your site. That way, if a plugin conflicts or a setting goes wrong, you can restore your working version.

• Use a backup plugin or your hosting provider’s backup tool.
• Make sure the backup includes both files and the database.
• Download a copy to your own computer or cloud storage if possible.

If you do not already have backups in place, set them up first so you can experiment with more confidence.

Ways to Unpublish a WordPress Site (Quick Overview)

Here is a quick comparison of common ways to unpublish or hide a WordPress site and what visitors will see:

Next, we’ll walk through step-by-step methods so you can pick the one that fits your situation.

Method 1: Use Maintenance Mode to Unpublish WordPress Site Temporarily

Maintenance mode is one of the safest ways to unpublish your WordPress site for a short time. Visitors see a simple message, but you can still log in and work on the site normally.

Step-by-step: enable maintenance or coming soon mode

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Install a trusted “maintenance mode” or “coming soon” plugin from Plugins » Add New.
3. Activate the plugin and open its settings page.
4. Customize your maintenance page: add your logo, a short message, and optional email signup.
5. Turn on Maintenance mode or Coming soon in the plugin settings and save.

Open your site in an incognito/private browser window. You should see the maintenance page, while logged-in admins still see the normal site.

Method 2: Hide Your WordPress Site With Password Protection

Another way to unpublish your WordPress site from the public is to protect it with a password. Only people who know the password (or have user accounts) can see the content.

Options for password protecting a WordPress site

• Membership or password plugins: These can protect the whole site or specific pages.
• Server-level protection: Some hosting control panels let you password protect folders.
• Per-page passwords: Built into WordPress, but only protect individual pages or posts.

Simple way: password protect key pages

1. Edit the page you want to hide (for example, your homepage).
2. In the Visibility or Status & visibility panel, change visibility from Public to Password Protected.
3. Enter a password and click Update.

Now visitors will see a password prompt when they try to access that page. For full-site protection, a dedicated password or membership plugin is usually easier to manage.

Method 3: Ask Search Engines Not to Show Your WordPress Site

Sometimes you do not want to fully unpublish a WordPress site, but you do want to keep it out of Google while you’re working on it.

How to discourage search engines in WordPress

1. In your dashboard, go to Settings » Reading.
2. Find the option labeled Search engine visibility.
3. Check the box that says Discourage search engines from indexing this site.
4. Click Save Changes.

This adds a signal (via robots.txt and meta tags) asking search engines not to index your WordPress site. Visitors can still access it if they know the URL; it is not a true “unpublish” but it keeps the site quieter while you polish it.

Method 4: Make a WordPress.com Site Private

If your site is hosted on WordPress.com (not self-hosted WordPress.org), you can unpublish the site by making it private.

Steps to make a WordPress.com site private

1. Log in to your WordPress.com dashboard.
2. Go to Settings for the specific site.
3. Look for the Privacy or Site visibility section.
4. Select Private so that only invited viewers can access the site.
5. Save your changes and send invitations to anyone who needs access.

Visitors who are not invited will see a message that the site is private and cannot view your content.

Method 5: Unpublish Your WordPress Homepage Only

Sometimes you don’t want to completely unpublish a WordPress site — you just want to hide the main homepage while you redesign it.

Using a simple “coming soon” page as your homepage

1. Create a new page called something like Coming Soon or Under Construction.
2. Add a short message and, if you like, a contact form or email signup.
3. Go to Settings » Reading and choose A static page for your homepage.
4. Select your Coming Soon page as the homepage and save.

Now visitors will land on your temporary page, while you can still access the rest of the site via direct URLs. This is a softer way to unpublish your WordPress homepage without changing everything else.

Method 6: Take Your WordPress Site Offline at the Hosting Level

If you truly want to unpublish a WordPress site so nothing loads at all, you can disable it from your hosting account.

Common hosting-level options

• Disable the domain: Point the domain to a parked page or remove its DNS records.
• Disable the site in a control panel: Some hosts let you turn sites off temporarily.
• Remove or rename the WordPress folder: More technical and should be done only with a backup.

This approach is closest to “pulling the plug.” Visitors may see a generic error page or a parked domain instead of your WordPress site.

What Happens to SEO When You Unpublish a WordPress Site?

Unpublishing your WordPress site, even temporarily, can affect your search engine rankings and traffic.

• Short-term maintenance mode: Brief downtime (a few hours) is usually fine.
• Long-term “discourage search engines”: Search engines may gradually drop your pages from results.
• Full offline or many 404 errors: If Google sees lots of missing pages, rankings can drop quickly.

If you are unpublishing the site for good, consider setting up redirects to another site or a new domain so users and search engines have somewhere useful to go.

How to Choose the Best Way to Unpublish WordPress Site

Ask yourself these questions before you decide:

• How long will the site be unpublished?
• Do you still need access while it is hidden?
• Do you care about SEO and existing rankings?
• Do specific people still need to see it?

1. Take a full backup.
2. Enable a well-designed maintenance or coming soon page.
3. Discourage search engines if the site is not ready for indexing.
4. Turn everything back on once your changes are done.

Conclusion You Can Unpublish WordPress Site Without Losing Your Work

Now you know several ways how to unpublish WordPress site safely: maintenance mode, password protection, privacy settings, and even full hosting-level shutdown. Each method has different effects on visitors and search engines.

Start with a backup, choose the level of visibility you are comfortable with, and test your site in an incognito window to confirm what visitors see. When you are ready to go live again, you can simply reverse the changes — no need to rebuild everything from scratch.

Frequently Asked Questions About Unpublishing a WordPress Site