WiscWeb - Site or Page Visibility Options

This document will walk you through the options that are available for adjusting the visibility of your site or particular pages.

Export a local copy of your site

Can be completed by: Website Admin

Before making sweeping changes to a site, it may be best that you save your current content locally. By exporting the site, you would be able to import back any content you might need by using an XML file. For this, please follow the instructions located here: WiscWeb - Exporting a WordPress site

Set all pages to private

Can be completed by: Website Admin or Editor

If you want to edit pages or posts to allow them to be edited but not visible to a public audience, you can set those items to Private so that they are still active, but hidden from any non-editors or admins of the site who are not logged in.

WiscWeb - Publishing views for pages and posts

Hide site from search engines

Can be completed by: Website admin or editor. Please be aware an administrator can only access plugins within a WordPress site.

If your main source of traffic is through search engines, you can update your site to be non-indexed.

If you would like to only hide individual pages from search engines, you can use the WiscWeb No Index plugin: WiscWeb - Using the UW No Index / Remove Pages from Search Crawlers plugin.

Archive project

Can be completed by: WiscWeb team

This option would be best if you meet any of the following criteria:
  • You want to remodel the site privately and the current public info can come down
  • You would like the site to be unavailable to the public
  • You would like users to be made aware that the site is currently unavailable
  • You're unsure if you want to delete the site, but would not like it public at this time
  • You would like the site to be taken down for now but may want it back up in the future
While the site is archived, the administrators and editors would not have access to the dashboard of the site. The WiscWeb team can easily un-archive the site to allow admins and editors to continue publishing pages and posts. 
When a site is archived, users who attempt to access the URL will receive a message that states: "This site has been archived or suspended." 

Example:

archive site

For this option, please send an email to help@doit.wisc.edu and request that we archive the site.

Un-publishing the domain

Can be completed by: WiscWeb team

This would publish to the WiscWeb URL again (sitename.wiscweb.wisc.edu) and would no longer be live.

The site will still be available to users who have the WiscWeb URL and for users who are editing the content of the site.

Please note: If someone goes to the production domain, a user would not receive any messaging that would indicate what happened to the site. This could be a jarring user experience. Therefore, it is suggested you only pursue this option if absolutely required.

For this option, please send an email to help@doit.wisc.edu and request that we un-publish the domain.

Deleting the site and domain

Can be completed by: WiscWeb team

This option would delete all content from the site and the site domain would no longer exist. To recreate the site, you would have to request a new project and create/import the content again.

For this option, please send an email to help@doit.wisc.edu and request a full site deletion.

See Also


Keywords:
delete site archive uncrawlable private pages crawl crawlable unmap unmapping domain edit deletion 
Doc ID:
104489
Owned by:
Matt G. in WiscWeb
Created:
2020-07-30
Updated:
2024-04-01
Sites:
DoIT Help Desk, WiscWeb