How to customize and display a friendly shutdown notice when the website is in a closed state?

In website operation, we sometimes need to temporarily close the website, whether it is for system upgrades, data maintenance, or short-term business adjustments.It is crucial to display a friendly shutdown prompt to the visitor in this case.This not only informs users of the website status, avoids unnecessary confusion, but also maintains the brand image and provides clear guidance for search engines.AnQiCMS (AnQiCMS) provides us with a flexible way to customize and display this information.

Enable website shutdown status and set basic prompts

Firstly, you need to set the website to be closed. This is very convenient in the Anqi CMS backend:

  1. Log in to your AnQi CMS backend management interface.
  2. In the left navigation bar, find and click on the "Global Function Settings" under "Backend Settings".
  3. On the global feature settings page, you will see an option named "Website Status". Please change this option from "Normal Access" to "Closed Site Status".
  4. Right away, in the "station closure prompt" text box, you can enter a brief prompt message.This information will be displayed to users when the website is in a shutdown state.You can enter plain text or add some basic HTML tags such as bold, links, etc., to make the information more readable.

After completing the above settings, save the changes. At this point, any user visiting your website will see the content you entered in the 'Shutdown Notice' text box.

Implementing advanced closed-site page design through custom template files

Although the "shutdown prompt" text box can meet the basic prompt needs, if you want the shutdown page to have a more professional and beautiful design, even to integrate brand elements, Anqi CMS allows you to achieve this through custom template files.

The template design of Anqi CMS follows a clear directory structure. In your template root directory (usually/template/你的模板目录/), there is a directory specifically for error pageserrors/. You can create a file namedclose.htmlin this directory. Once this file exists, when the website is in shutdown mode, the system will load and display your customizederrors/close.htmlTemplate, rather than just displaying the plain text prompt set in the background.

Byerrors/close.htmlTemplate, you can:

  • Completely control the page layout and style:You can write a complete HTML structure, and link external CSS files or directly write inline styles to make the offline page consistent with your website's overall style.
  • Integrate brand elements:Easily add your website's logo, brand colors, fonts, etc., even during closed sites, and maintain brand recognition. You can use{% system with name="SiteLogo" %}Use to call the website logo{% system with name="SiteName" %}To display the website name.
  • Display dynamic information:If you wish to display more detailed or dynamic content on the closed station page, such as maintenance time, expected recovery time, emergency contact information, etc., you can use the template tags of Anqi CMS. For example, you can use{% contact with name="Cellphone" %}Display the contact phone number, or dynamically obtain and display the specific maintenance end time through the custom parameter settings in the background global settings. Even if you still want to display the "shutdown prompt" text set in the background, you can also do so in the template by{% system with name="SiteCloseTips" %}tags to call.

For example, a basicerrors/close.htmltemplate may include the following structure:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="zh-CN">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>网站维护中 - {% system with name="SiteName" %}</title>
    <style>
        body { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-color: #f4f4f4; color: #333; text-align: center; padding: 50px; }
        .container { background-color: #fff; margin: 0 auto; padding: 30px; border-radius: 8px; box-shadow: 0 2px 4px rgba(0,0,0,0.1); max-width: 600px; }
        h1 { color: #0056b3; }
        p { line-height: 1.6; }
        .logo { margin-bottom: 20px; }
        .logo img { max-width: 150px; height: auto; }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <div class="container">
        <div class="logo">
            <img src="{% system with name="SiteLogo" %}" alt="{% system with name="SiteName" %}">
        </div>
        <h1>网站正在进行维护</h1>
        <p>非常抱歉,我们的网站目前正在进行重要的系统升级和数据维护。这有助于我们为您提供更好的服务体验。</p>
        <p>预计恢复时间:**具体时间或日期**</p>
        <p>如有紧急问题,请联系我们:<a href="mailto:{% contact with name="Email" %}">{% contact with name="Email" %}</a></p>
        <p>{% system with name="SiteCloseTips" %}</p> {# 如果您还想显示后台的简短提示 #}
        <p>感谢您的耐心等待!</p>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

some practical suggestions

When designing the shutdown prompt information, in order to provide a **user experience and minimize negative impact as much as possible, you can consider the following points:

  1. Be clear about the reason and time:Clearly inform the user why the website is closed (for example: system upgrade, feature optimization, data maintenance, etc.), and provide an expected recovery time (for example:
  2. Provide an alternative solution or contact method:If the user has an urgent need, provide a backup contact method, such as email, phone, or social media links, which can effectively reduce customer churn.
  3. Maintain brand consistency:Even a temporary shutdown page should maintain a design consistent with your website and brand style, including the logo, color scheme, and tone to maintain a professional image.
  4. Simple and clear:Avoid long or complex text, directly convey the core information, so that users can understand at a glance.

By making good use of the offline site function and template customization capabilities provided by Anqi CMS, you can easily create a professional and user-friendly offline site prompt page, ensuring good communication with visitors even when the website needs to be temporarily offline.


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Why can I still see the content of my website after setting it to a closed site status?

If the website is set to a closed station status and you can still see the content, it is usually due to browser caching.Please try clearing your browser cache, changing browsers, or accessing the website in incognito mode.In addition, if you are a website administrator and have logged into the backend, the system may allow you to continue browsing the front-end for your convenience.Make sure to test while not logged in.

2. Will the closed site notification message affect the website's search engine optimization (SEO)?

Reasonable shutdown prompts have little impact on SEO. Anqi CMS usually returns specific HTTP status codes (such as 503 Service Unavailable) when handling shutdowns, informing search engines that the website is temporarily closed and to come back later for crawling.At the same time, a well-designed shutdown page that clearly states the reasons for the shutdown and the recovery time can also help search engines understand the temporary state of the website, avoid being incorrectly judged as permanently offline, and thus reduce the negative impact on ranking.

3. Can I set different shutdown tips for different sites or pages?

The "Global Function Settings" of AnQi CMS, including "Site Shutdown Status" and "Site Shutdown Prompt", are global settings for the entire website. And the template fileerrors/close.htmlIt is also a globally applicable shutdown page template. This means that when the website is in shutdown status, all visits will be directed to the same shutdown page.If you need to set different shutdown prompts for different sub-sites in multi-site management, you may need to judge the current site ID in the template file (siteIdThis allows dynamic content display, but it increases the complexity of the template.For individual pages within a single site, the shutdown function of AnQi CMS currently does not support setting a shutdown prompt for each page separately.