Use Settings → Site → Access to choose what visitors see before launch, during maintenance, or when a site should be restricted. This guide covers site modes, search visibility, age checks, regional access, and the checks to make before opening your site.
You need permission to edit site settings. If the controls are read-only or missing, ask your site administrator; see Why can’t I see or edit a feature?.
Access settings save automatically. Confirming a mode change starts saving it to the live site. Search and visitor-restriction changes also autosave. Prepare your message and intended audience before changing these controls.
Choose the right site mode
In What visitors see, choose the mode that matches your goal.
- Live: open the normal website. Visitors see published content, subject to page access rules and visitor restrictions.
- Waitlist: collect interest before launch with a coming-soon homepage. Ordinary website pages are unavailable; supported exceptions are explained below.
- Presale: offer purchases before the full site launches. Visitors can use the presale homepage and supported sign-in, storefront, and purchase pages. Requires Cedros Login, Cedros Pay, and Cedros Shop.
- Maintenance: temporarily pause normal browsing and show a maintenance message while you work.
- Internal: restrict the site to authorized team accounts. Visitors see a sign-in message until they authenticate with an account that has the required site-settings access.
Site mode does not publish draft pages, repair a domain connection, or grant someone account permissions. To publish content, use Understanding drafts, previews, and publishing. For a domain or certificate error, use domain troubleshooting or HTTPS troubleshooting.
Change what visitors see
- Open the intended site's admin and go to Settings → Site → Access.
- Read the current What visitors see summary. Also check the search-visibility card and Visitor restrictions; they apply alongside your chosen mode.
- Select the new mode. Review Switch site mode?, then select Switch to Live, Switch to Waitlist, or the corresponding confirmation. Select Cancel to leave the mode unchanged.
- Let the change finish saving. If an error appears, resolve it before assuming the public site has changed.
- For a holding or sign-in page, edit the Headline and Description shown beneath the selected mode. These edits also autosave, so visitors can see the existing message between activation and your copy changes.
- Reopen Access after saving and confirm the selected mode. Then open the normal public address in a separate, signed-out browser and check the visitor experience.
Mode-specific copy is retained when you switch away. Review it when reactivating a mode so visitors do not see an old launch date or maintenance estimate.
Waitlist and Presale
For Waitlist, use the headline to explain what is coming and the description to tell visitors what they can do now. Test the public signup experience and its confirmation before advertising the page.
Waitlist is a launch experience, not a blanket privacy setting. Booking pages can remain available. If your site has Early Access enabled, supported sign-in routes and authenticated early-access visits can also remain available. Installed marketplace pages may have their own public exceptions.
Presale is available only when the required Cedros Login, Cedros Pay, and Cedros Shop features are active. If the choice is disabled, read its prerequisite message and ask your administrator to finish the missing setup. Selecting Presale does not create products, prices, or payment-provider connections. Verify those separately before inviting customers to buy.
Presale keeps the supported sign-in and shopping journey available while ordinary site pages remain behind the launch experience. Check the product page, checkout, and purchase-status experience you intend customers to use.
An enabled link-in-bio page at /links remains public through Waitlist, Presale, and Maintenance. Internal mode also restricts that page. Check any public booking, shopping, or links pages you use instead of judging access from the homepage alone.
Maintenance
Use Maintenance for a temporary interruption to an existing website. Explain what is unavailable and when visitors should try again.
Alongside Headline and Description, you can set Progress percent and Estimated time. These are messages you maintain; entering an estimate does not schedule the site to reopen or update progress automatically.
When the work is complete, return to Access, select Live, confirm the switch, and test the public site. For a site that already has indexed pages, use Maintenance for a temporary pause rather than replacing it with a pre-launch Waitlist experience, where ordinary page URLs may return “not found.”
Internal
Use Internal when viewing the site should require an authorized team account. Set the Headline, Description, and Login URL for the sign-in page. The default Login URL is /admin; only replace it with a working sign-in destination for your site.
An ordinary customer account or a successful sign-in alone does not grant Internal access. The account must have permission to read site settings. Ask an administrator to verify the intended team's access using Choosing roles and managing permissions.
Before relying on this mode, check all three cases:
- A signed-out visitor sees the sign-in message.
- An account without the required permission cannot browse the restricted site.
- An authorized team account can sign in and open the intended pages.
Do not grant administrative access merely to create a customer membership or paid-content area. Use the relevant content access controls for that audience.
Decide whether search engines may list the site
The Show this site in search results switch controls indexing preferences separately from visitor access.
- On: search engines may list eligible public content. Individual pages can still be excluded by their own settings.
- Off: Cedros asks search engines not to index the site, and the sitemap stays empty.
Turning this switch off does not make a Live site private. Someone with its address can still visit, and indexing preferences do not replace sign-in or page access rules.
In Waitlist or Presale mode, leaving search visibility on allows the public holding homepage to appear in search. The card warns Your holding page can appear in search. Turn the switch off if you do not want that page listed.
Maintenance and Internal pages are kept out of indexing regardless of the switch. Your saved search preference matters when the site returns to a public mode, so review it again at launch.
Search results do not change instantly. Google needs to revisit a page to observe a noindex instruction; allowing indexing also does not guarantee a listing or a particular position. See Google's guidance on blocking indexing. Check the saved Cedros setting first, rather than repeatedly toggling it while waiting for search results to update.
Set regional access
Open Visitor restrictions → Regional access. Country controls use the location detected from the visitor's connection. They do not establish a person's nationality or residence.
Launch country by country
Use Stage rollout by country when the normal site should be available only in selected launch countries.
- Under Live countries, search for and select every country you intend to launch in.
- Review the selected list before activation. Selecting countries prepares the rollout; it does not turn it on.
- Turn on Stage rollout by country when you are ready. The switch requires at least one selected live country.
- Check Location verification and any hard-blocked countries, then wait for saving to complete.
- Test from a selected country and from outside the selected list. Check the normal public address, not a team preview.
With rollout active, visitors outside the live-country list, or whose country is unknown, receive the regional waitlist experience unless a stricter location check blocks them. A global Waitlist or Maintenance mode still takes precedence: adding a live country does not override the site's selected mode.
Once rollout is active, changes to Live countries autosave and affect availability. To end the staged rollout, turn off Stage rollout by country. Any separate hard blocks remain in effect.
Block selected countries
Turn on Hard-block selected countries, then select the intended Blocked countries. Changes apply as they save; review each selection carefully.
Matching visitors see a blocking message with retry and exit actions. If a country is both live and hard-blocked, hard blocking wins. Remove an unintended block only after confirming that the country should be allowed.
The summary Available everywhere means no regional restriction is configured. Other site modes, age checks, or page access rules may still limit access.
Choose location verification
Normal uses the country reported by your hosting service. If the location is unknown, this check does not block the visitor. With staged rollout active, an unknown country still receives the regional waitlist because it is not in the live-country list.
Strict blocks visitors when your hosting service cannot provide a valid country and public IP address, or when that information conflicts. Confirm with your host that location detection works before relying on Strict mode.
A VPN is assessed by its exit country; these controls do not guarantee identification of a visitor's physical location. Test the actual customer paths and involve your host if legitimate visitors receive location errors.
Add an age check
Under Visitor restrictions → Age check, turn on Require visitors to confirm their age, then set Minimum age.
The public site asks visitors to confirm they meet that age. Their response is remembered on their device; raising the minimum age prompts returning visitors again.
Use a fresh browser session to check the prompt and test both continuing and declining. This is a visitor confirmation prompt, not an identity-document check. It does not make the site private or replace a separate sign-in requirement.
Open the site and verify the launch
Before switching to Live, finish the relevant items in Your website launch checklist. Confirm that the intended pages are published and that the HTTPS address works.
Then check:
- Site mode: choose Live, confirm the switch, and verify it saved.
- Search visibility: set Show this site in search results to your intended launch preference.
- Visitor restrictions: review staged rollout, hard blocks, and the age check. Keep only the restrictions you intend.
- Public pages: open the homepage and several direct page URLs while signed out. Follow navigation and a main customer action.
- Restricted pages: confirm private or account-only content still requires the appropriate access.
- Other audiences: test an intended customer account and, where relevant, visitors inside and outside your launch countries.
A preview or your own authorized session can show content an ordinary visitor cannot see. Use normal public URLs and an independent visitor session for the final check.
If visitors see the wrong experience
The setting looks changed, but visitors still see the old mode. Check for a save error, then reload Access to confirm the saved mode. Reopen the public URL in a separate browser. If it still differs, send support the exact URL, change time, and expected versus actual behavior; do not change DNS to fix a saved access setting.
The homepage works, but other pages say “not found.” Check whether Waitlist or Presale is still selected. In Live mode, check each page's exact route and published status.
An Internal user signs in but remains blocked. Verify the account is for the correct site and has the required site-settings permission. Changing the Login URL does not grant permission.
Only some visitors see a waitlist or blocking message. Review the live-country list, hard blocks, and location-verification mode. Record the visitor's reported country, network, and exact message so the host can investigate detection.
A normal page is still visible during a holding mode. Check whether it is a supported booking, shopping, marketplace, Early Access, or /links exception. If you need team-only access, review Internal mode instead.
The site is Live but does not appear in search. Check site-wide search visibility and the page's own indexing preference. Publication and indexing are separate; a correct setting does not force an immediate search listing.
For unresolved problems, follow Getting help and reporting a problem. Include the site URL, saved mode, relevant restriction, time of the change, exact message, and whether the visitor was signed in. Do not include passwords, session tokens, or private preview links.