Sites sometimes need to go into the maintenance mode for some reason or the other. This is not a problem as long as your site is not live to the public. However for sites receiving heavy traffic, this is a problem. In order to prevent this potential traffic from seeing the broken version of the website, it is crucial that you employ a neat way to handle this. In WordPress, this is simplified by the use of a maintenance mode plugin.
In this article I’m going to talk about the Ultimate Maintenance Mode plugin which will redirect visitors to a temporary message, explaining that the site is down for maintenance. But the plugin allows admins to access the site and continue their maintenance activities.
What Does the Ultimate Maintenance Mode Plugin Do?
This plugin basically helps stop people from accessing your site by replacing the homepage by a splash page which tells the visitor that the site is under maintenance.
This is great while going through routine maintenance or some kind of testing.
How to Use the Ultimate Maintenance Mode Plugin?
1. The plugin provides you with ‘WYSIWYG’ editor to display a customized message. It means that all the information that you wish to show on the splash page can be written here. It’s a simple WordPress post editor interface. You can add images as per your choice.
2. You can also upload a Custom Background Image that will represent the website. You can upload any image you want but the size should not exceed 5MB. The under maintenance text will be displayed in a box above the background image. This is where you select the background Image.
I would like to mention here, that I could not upload the Custom Background Image image due to some unknown reason. It just did not display the background image for me. Maybe I should ask for some help or raise a support call!
3. You can work on the site in the meanwhile. While the site is under maintenance for visitors, the admin can access the site and do modifications.
Warning
The one disadvantage I see, is that the plugin sends the entire site in the maintenance mode and not individual pages, which might be the requirement for some. There is a pro version also available for the plugin which probably overcomes this drawback, but I haven’t investigated it as yet.
Should I Use the Ultimate Maintenance Mode Plugin?
Yes. Instead of leaving your site incomplete to visitors, go into a maintenance mode, and let your visitors see a “Under Maintenance” message. This plugin gracefully takes your site offline for maintenance. It is an extremely simple and easy to use plugin, and blends with any WordPress theme.
I would recommend this plugin to anyone who wishes to take their entire site off for maintenance purposes. What are your thoughts about this plugin? Do you recommend a better idea? Do let me know your ideas in the comment section below.
Please note, some of the links in this blog post might be affiliate links. This means if you go on to purchase a product using such a link, we receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you). This helps us support the blog and produce free content. We only recommend products we work with or love. Thank you for your support!
Leave a Reply