Password protecting your site

Sometimes a site is not for everyone yet. You are still building it, you are showing it to a client, or the album drops on Friday and you would rather nobody found the page before then. Visibility lets you put one shared password in front of the whole site.

Anyone who opens your address gets a small screen asking for the password. Enter it and the site behaves exactly as normal. Get it wrong and nothing loads at all.

Turning it on

1. Go to My Website then Home.
2. If you have more than one website, pick the one you want to protect from the dropdown next to the page title.
3. Click the menu button (three dots) at the top right.
4. Click Visibility.
5. Choose Password protected.
6. Type a password of at least 6 characters in the field. This is the password you will hand out, so make it something you can say out loud.
7. Click Save.

Back on the My Website home, a Password protected badge now sits next to your web address, so you can always tell at a glance whether the public can get in.

What the password covers

Everything. That is the point, and it is worth knowing before you switch it on.

• Every page, from your home page to the deepest product page.
• Checkout, the member area, and account pages. Your members and customers will be asked for the password too, so do not leave a live store behind a password unless you mean to.
• Your preview link. A shareable preview of the site is covered by the same password.
• Search engines. A protected site tells search engines not to index it, so it stays out of results while it is closed.

What a visitor sees

Instead of your site, they get a small dark screen with:

• Your website's name at the top, so they know whose door they are knocking on.
• The line "Enter the password to continue."
• A password box and an Enter button.

If they type the wrong password they see "That password is not right. Try again." and stay where they are.

Once someone is in, they stay in until they close their browser. Next time they open it, they will be asked again.

Changing the password

1. Open Visibility again from the My Website home menu.
2. With Password protected selected, you will see the date the current password was set and a Change password button.
3. Click Change password, type the new one, and click Save.

Changing the password locks out everyone who is currently in. That is the fastest way to close the door again after you have shared it more widely than you meant to.

Making the site public again

1. Open Visibility.
2. Choose Public.
3. Click Save.

The site is immediately open to everyone and the badge disappears from your My Website home. Search engines can index it again on their next visit.

Good reasons to use it

• Build in the open, privately. Work on a full site, share the address with a bandmate or a client, and only go public when you are ready.
• A client site under review. Hand over one password instead of arranging accounts for everyone who needs to look.
• A launch you want to rehearse. Put the whole thing live, test checkout end to end, then remove the password on launch day instead of rushing a publish.
• A private page for a small group. A rehearsal schedule, a press kit, a members-only announcement page.

Where to go next

• Get your site ready to open up: Publishing your website.
• Put it on your own web address: Managing domains.