Don't want site to be visible to public

[jenzi]

Hi again, how can I set my store to be visible only to me while I am still working on it? And I don't want it to come up in Google yet. Sorry if this is a straight-forward one, I tried to search for an answer and couldn't find anything...

[Qdixon]

put it into maintenence mode and add your ip as an exception. This is done in the admin panel.

or set an htaccess file

When developing sites

This lets google crawl the page, lets me access without a password, and lets my client access the page WITH a password. It also allows for XHTML and CSS validation! (w3.org)

AuthName "Under Development"
AuthUserFile /home/sitename.com/.htpasswd
AuthType basic
Require valid-user
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 208.113.134.190 w3.org htmlhelp.com googlebot.com
Satisfy Any


see here: http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/apache-htaccess.html

[kobra]

Hi again, how can I set my store to be visible only to me while I am still working on it? And I don't want it to come up in Google yet.

IMO it is best to let Google and other SE's see it - actually submit it to them while developing and as you add content - product meta data/descriptions - re-submit it. This way they keep returning and seeing changes(to content) and you are ahead at getting found once you are open. Remember the bots do not read images/graphics so it is your content(text) that is important for them

[jenzi]

Hi, thanks for the advice, that is what I have now done. It's a shame you can still see the sidebars etc though.

[DrByte]

In your Website Maintenance area, you can specify whether sidebars can be seen in maintenance mode.

[kobra]

In your Website Maintenance area, you can specify whether sidebars can be seen in maintenance mode.

To my knowledge, bots do not crawl site that is down for maint though.
Place a define_main_page with explanation that site is not open for business...
What have you got in side bars that you do not want seen???