Website private until finished

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How can I make the website I am working on private until it's ready to launch?  Thanks for your help!

[Lorraine]

Hi Stacey, there are plugins that can "mask" the front with a maintenance mode message.  You can then see the site normally as a logged in user but no0one else can.

I have used a few different ones and found them all to be OK.

[scoe]

Hello Stacey,

Alternative 1: Set up a password protection with htaccess. If you can edit your htaccess file to require a certain user's username and password that's best. If you can't do that or your host won't let you (websynthesis for security reasons), then consider accessing your site by it's IP address. I used that method until this week.

http://www.colostate.edu/~ric/htpass.html

Alternative 2: IP address access.  If you have not yet pointed your domain name there via DNS, because it is live elsewhere maybe, but you can reach your new host by IP address, then you can access it up that way and although <em>it can still be accessed by others who know the ip address</em> it is not going to be indexed in search engines that way.

To work on your site, you'll need to trick your own computer into thinking that the domain name is pointed that that IP address. You can do this by editing your hosts file or setting up a proxy server. I recommend using the hosts file on your computer.  These links courtesy of D. at copyblogger support...

"To learn more about configuring your host file, please select the link for your operating system."

Windows XP:
http://www.dotcomunderground.com/blogs/2006/01/28/how-to-modify-windows-xp-host-file/

Windows 7:
http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/windows-7-hosts-file/

Mac OS:
http://decoding.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/how-to-edit-the-hosts-file-in-mac-os-x-leopard/

Honestly I just learned how to edit my hosts file last week. It works like a charm for me but full disclosure, it was new to me. So nice now to work on a site that's not live!!

Alternative 3: Install a local edition of wordpress at bitnami.org. There is a tutorial on this at Lynda.com. I did not need it, it worked just like any other windows install.

http://www.lynda.com/WordPress-tutorials/Installing-Running-WordPress-BitNami/114908-2.html
http://bitnami.org/

A local bitnami wordpress installation is great for learning but if you are expecting to upload it and have your design work instantly, there be dragons here. The server will probably be different on your host. You'll have to back up your content and settings from your computer and upload them to a different server when you go live. It should be OK, but servers can have different versions of php and graphics packages. There is a genesis settings transporter plugin that might help here. (I have not used it.) This is a good bet if you also use a bitnami wordpress server on the live web. See Bitnami Cloud Hosting.

Hope this helps. I wrestled with this last week so if you come across another solution please post about it so I can learn more on this.

[scoe]

A Plugin sounds easy, thanks Navitas...

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