Shutdown a website

Let’s say I have a website and I update the website sometimes without needing to turn off the server and not let anyone access it.

What are the cases when I’m going to have to restrict accessing the website while I update it?

Thank you.

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I’d say it depends on the website and the update definitely, but I can give you a real life example. I’m currently working long term with a client and their site. It’s built in Wordpress and whenever there’s a major update like a page to be added, or large amounts of content needs to be changed, I’ll use a WP plugin to restrict access. Basically it makes a “under maintenance” splash page that users will see when trying to access the site and they can’t get to any other page until I switch the plugin off.

I’ll usually also do this late at night in my timezone when site traffic should be the lowest. If you’ve got Google Analytics going you can see if there’s anyone currently on the site and where they are.

If it’s a small update though, like a line or two of text or adding a link, changing up a photo, etc, I won’t shut things down. I will however check what I’m adding a million times to make sure it’s perfect and bug free before I publish the changes. Don’t want a missing quote or closing tag to break part of the layout :laughing: