WordPress tip of the day : how to momentarily turn your WordPress blog down, while working on some heavy maintaining task ?<\/p>\n
There are a few plugins around that, once activated, redirect every request to a page telling readers that your blog is currently under some maintenance, reconstruction, attack or anythnig. There is a much much smarter and simple way to do this :
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Create a one page theme, index.php<\/strong> only, with your announcement. This file could look like :<\/p>\n You also need a simple style.css<\/strong> so that WordPress will actually identify your file as a theme, and allow you to select it in the admin menu :<\/p>\n And you're done. If you select this theme, all of your pages will be available (no "page not found" or anything)and all show the same message.<\/p>\n Of course, for longer shutdowns, you could improve the page a bit : add an appropriate header code (307 Temporary Redirect<\/em> maybe ?) and a few relevant meta tags so that search engine bots would not completely clear your page out of their database.<\/p>\n I think this method is better than using a plugin since, with such a theme, server and database loads are lowered down to the strict minimum. This could even help you upgrade stuff faster.<\/p>\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>What the ... ?<\/title>\r\n<\/head>\r\n<body>\r\n<center><p>Currently upgrading... Check back later !<\/p><\/center>\r\n<\/body>\r\n<\/html><\/code><\/pre><\/div>\n\/* \r\nTheme Name: Shutdown\r\nTheme URI: http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/\r\nDescription: Momentarily shut your blog down\r\nVersion: 1\r\nAuthor: You\r\nAuthor URI: http:\/\/localhost\/\r\n*\/<\/code><\/pre><\/div>\n