---
title: Switching sites to off-line mode
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

Kentico allows you to bring [sites](https://docs.kentico.com/k12sp/configuring-kentico/managing-sites.md) off-line. This can be useful if you need to make major modifications to your site and wish to hide it while the update is in progress. When in off‑line mode:

- Visitors cannot access the live version of the website
- The site still remains running and editors and administrators can normally work through the administration interface.

To enable off-line mode for websites:

1. Open the **Sites** application.
2. Edit () the site.
3. Open the **Off-line mode** tab.
4. Choose how to handle users who attempt to access the site while it is off-line:

   - **Display following message** - add the message content using the WYSIWYG editor. The system sets the HTTP response status code of the page to 503, so applications and crawlers who access the site should be able to correctly recognize the situation.
   - **Redirect visitor to following URL** - enter the address of an alternate website or page to which users will automatically be redirected until the site is returned back on-line.

   ![Switching a site to off-line mode](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k12sp/switching-sites-to-off-line-mode/Site_Offline_Mode.png "Switching a site to off-line mode")
5. Click **Save**.
6. Click **Take the site off-line**.

The site is now off-line. Visitors who access the site either see your off-line message or are redirected to the specified alternative page.

![Viewing an off-line site as a visitor](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k12sp/switching-sites-to-off-line-mode/Offline_Site.png "Viewing an off-line site as a visitor")

At any time, you can allow visitors to access the site again by clicking **Bring the site on-line** on the **Off-line mode** tab.