Maintenance Mode Addon

The Maintenance Mode Addon allows you to display a custom maintenance page to your visitors while your site is undergoing updates or changes. Instead of the normal site content, visitors will see a page you’ve crafted; complete with your own message, branding, and design. This helps maintain a professional appearance and clear communication even when your site is temporarily offline.

Using this addon, you can create a simple text-based notice or build a fully designed layout for your maintenance page. The addon also lets you personalize the page’s title (for the browser tab) and apply custom styling, ensuring a seamless user experience that matches your site’s look and feel during downtime.

View Maintenance Mode demo.

Requirements

Activation

  1. In your WordPress admin dashboard, navigate to SiteOrigin PremiumAddons.
  2. Find the Maintenance Mode addon in the list of available addons or use the search field.
  3. Click the Activate button to enable the Maintenance Mode addon. (If it’s already active, you can skip this step.)
  4. Once activated, click the Settings button for the Maintenance Mode addon to open its configuration panel.
  5. Adjust the Maintenance Mode settings as desired (see below for details on each option), then save your changes.

Usage

After activation, configure the Maintenance Mode settings to tailor the maintenance page to your needs. The available settings include:

  • Enable Maintenance Mode: Toggle this option to turn maintenance mode on or off. When enabled, all regular visitors will be shown your maintenance page instead of the site’s usual content. (Logged-in administrators and editors are not affected, allowing you to view and work on the site normally without getting locked out.) Remember to disable this setting when your maintenance is complete to restore normal site access.
  • Display: Choose how you will provide the content for your maintenance page. You have two options:
    • Text – Use a rich text editor to write a custom message for your visitors. You can format the text, include links, and even add basic HTML or shortcodes if needed. By default, the editor is pre-filled with a sample maintenance message that you can modify.
    • Layout Builder – Design a completely custom page layout using the SiteOrigin Page Builder interface. This option lets you add rows, columns, and widgets to create a more advanced maintenance page. (This requires the SiteOrigin Page Builder plugin to be active. If Page Builder is not available, this option will not be available.)
  • Title: Specify the text to use for the browser tab/title bar when maintenance mode is active. This is the page title that appears in the visitor’s browser. By default, it is set to “Under Maintenance – [Your Site Name]”, but you can change it to any wording that suits your site.
  • Design: Expand this section to customize the appearance of your maintenance page. The Design panel contains several subsections, each allowing you to style different aspects of the page:
    • Body – Configure the overall page background. You can set a solid Background Color for the maintenance page (the default is a light grey), and optionally select a Background Image to display behind the content. If you choose an image, you can adjust its Opacity to blend it with the background color.
    • Content Container – Adjust the container that holds your maintenance message or layout. You can set a maximum Width for this content container (for example, 820px by default), and choose its Alignment on the page (left, center, or right). You can also add inner Padding and outer Margin space to control spacing around the content. Additionally, you can pick a container Background Color (default is white) and a Border Radius to round the corners of the container. For an extra touch, a Box Shadow option is available; when enabled, it lets you apply a drop-shadow effect to the content container (with controls for shadow color, blur, spread, and offset).
    • Heading – Customize the appearance of any headings in your maintenance content (for example, the first line or title in your message). You can select a Font (choose from various font families), set the heading Font Size (e.g. 32px default), and choose a heading Color (default is a dark charcoal). These settings will apply to text wrapped in heading tags (such as an <h1> in the maintenance message).
    • Text – Customize the body text appearance for your maintenance message. You can choose a Font for the regular text, adjust the Font Size (16px default), and set the text Color (default is nearly black). If your message contains hyperlinks, you can also set a Link Color and Link Hover Color to control the appearance of links in the text.

Note: While maintenance mode is active, the addon will send a 503 “Service Unavailable” status to visitors and prevent caching, indicating to browsers and search engines that your site is temporarily down. This ensures the maintenance page is not cached or indexed. Once you have finished your updates, be sure to deactivate maintenance mode so that your site is fully accessible to all visitors again.

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