Keeping Site Private for now – how?

I like Jeremy Massel’s Under Construction plugin for this.

Thanks Cubecolor. I couldn’t figure out that plug-in quickly enough (didn’t see instructions for setting it up) so I just figured out to put all my posts and pages as Pending Review and I set up a nice home page. Done!

Oops. Mean Cubecolour! Us Americans are always messing up English, aren’t we?

The plugin is a much better option as when you are logged in you can view the whole site as if it was live, but anyone else just sees the holding page. It couldn’t be any simpler to use – just activate it, go into settings -> under construction & select the ‘on’ option.

Boy am I feeling stupid. I did what you suggested originally, but when I checked the site – I saw it was as it was before. I didn’t think about checking it on another computer! Just did that and of course it worked! Thank you for being patient and for that great piece of advice. Problem solved! And I assume when I’m ready to go live I just delete the plugin? Any idea why the WordPress system was changed from the days it allowed you to choose private?

Glad it has worked for you.

Yes you can deactivate it and remove it like any other plugin once the site has gone live.

I wasn’t aware of there ever being a private option in self-hosted WordPress – wasn’t that always a WordPress.com thing?

Once again – you’re probably right. I have so many wordpress sites I don’t remember which is which. And tomorrow I’m teaching a Lithuanian friend how to upgrade to WordPress from her horrible site and server! (is hosting with you guys the best option for someone who doesn’t have her own server? Any problem with doing that since she lives in one country but her fans are in another?)