How to close a blog

CMS & WordPress
1

Hi there,

All of my blogs are on our server.

I’m looking to do 2 things…

  1. Close down a blog so it no longer shows up, but I don’t lose all the content in case I want to reopen it again.

  2. How to make the entire blog private so people have to log in to see the posts.

Thanks

Michelle

2

All of your content is stored in the database. You should make a back-up of that 1st, then there’s a couple of options:

  1. Install the Maintenance Mode plugin. This allows you do have your site operational but set a specific landing page without the rest of the site/blog visible.
  2. Rename your WordPress index.php file on your server root and replace it with another holding page

Again, there’s plugins like WP-Members and [URL=“http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/private-wordpress-access-control-manager/”]Private! that can help you do this.

3

Hi there,

Thanks for this.

Now 2 questions.

For both blogs I have SE questions?

I think with the one I want to make a private membership I want the title of the post to be picked up by the SEs, but the actual meat & potatoes of the post to be private. Does either of the 2 you recommended do that?

As for the one I want totally removed from the net, you said we could set a specific landing page, but will using this plug-in remove all the posts/pages that are currently in the SEs, or do I have to remove them manually from Google which will take forever?

Michelle

4

I built a WordPress powered membership site some time ago for a client that wanted what you asking for. This can be done using “excerpts” where the first paragraph, or what ever text you want, along with the title, will be exposed (to both public and search engines). I probably wouldn’t try exposing some content just for search engines and not for the public as this falls under the cloaking umbrella which will land you in hot water.

As for turning the other blog off. Any requests for the old pages will be returned with the landing page, so eventually (pretty quickly depending on the crawl/index rate of your site) will get consolidated with the landing page. You won’t have to remove them manually. There’s no way, other than a URL removal request to speed up the “de-indexing” process.

5

So what did you use for the membership site plug-in wise? Was it the backend that mattered, or the template?

I’ve never heard of cloaking umbrella before. So what falls under that realm? The title & a parag of the body?

What if it’s just the title?

Thanks

Michelle

6

I can’t remember the plugin name - it was circa 2007 so I doubt that it’s still around or WP3 compatible.

It wouldn’t be too different to what the WP-Members plugin does. There’s both back-end and front-end (template) work required normally, though plugins can take care of both.

More on cloaking: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-cloaking/7596/

You should be exposing the same content to Google that you expose to non-members of the site - so that could be just the Title, or the Title and excerpt, or what ever you want to expose publicly.

7

I seem to always have problems getting SP’s e-mail notifications. 50% of the time I get them, the other I don’t.

Anyway, thanks a ton & have a lovely week :slight_smile:

Michelle

8

Just deleting files would work. It would close then you could always reopen.