How to customize the prompt information page displayed to users when the website is closed?

When a website needs maintenance, upgrading, or temporarily suspending service, it is crucial to display a friendly prompt page to visitors instead of a cold error message, as this enhances user experience and maintains brand image.AnQiCMS (AnQiCMS) is well-versed in this, providing a flexible and convenient way for you to easily customize the prompt information page when the website is closed.

Anqi CMS shutdown processing mechanism

The AnQi CMS is built with website status management functionality, allowing you to control the visibility of the website to the outside world with one click.In the background "Global Feature Settings", you will find an option called "Website Status".When you set it to "offline", the website will no longer provide normal services to the public, and all visitors will be redirected to a prompt page.

The system also provides a "shutdown prompt" text box, where you can directly enter a brief prompt text.This is very convenient for quickly posting a temporary notice, but if you want to display richer content, such as images, links, or a more personalized layout, you will need to customize the closed page template at a deeper level.

Deeply customized shutdown page template

AnQi CMS allows you to fully control the content and style of the closed station page, which is thanks to its flexible template system.You can customize the shutdown prompt page by modifying a specific template file to create a professional display that matches your brand's style.

1. Find the shutdown page template fileIn the template directory structure of Anqi CMS, the shutdown page corresponds toerrors/close.htmlfile. It is usually located in the folder of the template theme you are using./templateIn the directory. For example, if your template theme name is 'default', the path may be/template/default/errors/close.html.

2. Editclose.htmlFileThisclose.htmlThe file is a standard HTML file. This means you can edit it like any web page, adding HTML structure, CSS styles, and JavaScript code.

  • Add custom content:You can enter any information you want to conveyetc.
  • Include styles and scripts:To make the closed page look more professional and beautiful, you canclose.htmlIntroduce external CSS files or inline CSS styles, even add simple JavaScript effects.Ensure that these static resources are accessible even when the website is closed.
  • Coding requirements:When editing template files, please save them as UTF-8 encoding to avoid garbled Chinese content.

3. Use AnQi CMS tags to obtain dynamic informationThe strength of Anqi CMS lies in the fact that you can also use built-in template tags to dynamically obtain basic information about the website even on closed pages, avoiding hard coding.This makes your landing page more flexible and easy to maintain.

  • Display the website name and Logo:You can usesystemTag to retrieve the website name and Logo, maintaining brand consistency.
    
<h1>{% system with name="SiteName" %} 正在维护中...</h1>
<img src="{% system with name="SiteLogo" %}" alt="{% system with name="SiteName" %}" />
  • Display contact information:If you want users to be able to contact you even when the website is down, you can usecontacttags to get preset contact information.
    
<p>如有紧急事宜，请联系我们：</p>
<p>电话：{% contact with name="Cellphone" %}</p>
<p>邮箱：{% contact with name="Email" %}</p>
  • Display copyright information:The footer usually includes copyright statements, and you can also automatically display them with tags.
    
<p>{% system with name="SiteCopyright" %}</p>

By these tags, you do not need to manually modify the contact information or Logo when closing the site, just update it once in the background, and the closing page will automatically synchronize.

Why is it important to customize the shutdown page?

A well-designed shutdown page can:

  • Improve user experience:Avoid users from seeing a stiff '404' or server error page and let them know that the website issue is temporary.
  • Maintain brand image: Even in offline mode, it can maintain brand professionalism and consistency through a unified visual style and friendly wording.
  • Provide clear guidance:Inform the user why the website is closed, when it is expected to recover, and even provide other contact methods or related social media links to reduce user confusion and loss.
  • SEO-friendly (operation suggestion):If it is a short-term maintenance, it is recommended that the server return the 503 (Service Unavailable) HTTP status code and inform the search engine through the page content that it is temporarily closed to avoid affecting the website's SEO ranking.The shutdown page of AnQi CMS is only a frontend display, but when configuring the server backend, it is advisable to return a 503 status code.

Practical suggestions

When designing a dead-end page, please remember the following points:

  1. Simple and clear:Information should not be too much, the core is to tell the user 'What is the website doing' and 'When will it come back?'.
  2. Visual consistency:Use your website's logo, brand colors, and fonts to make it easily recognizable by users.
  3. Provide contact information:Provide at least one alternative contact method, such as email or phone, for users in urgent situations.
  4. Estimated recovery time:If possible, provide an approximate recovery time so that the user has something to look forward to. Even a 'check later' is better than no information at all.
  5. Apologies and thanks:A brief apology and gratitude for the user's understanding can effectively soften negative emotions.

By using these features and flexibility provided by Anqi CMS, you can easily create a shutdown prompt page that can convey effective information and maintain a good user experience, ensuring that you can maintain positive communication with your visitors even during website downtime.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1: Can I add animation effects or external links to the closed station prompt page?A1: Of course. Becauseerrors/close.htmlIt is a standard HTML file where you can embed any HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code, including animation effects (such as CSS animations or Lottie animations), or add external links to your social media, partner websites, etc.But make sure that these external resources can also be loaded normally during the website shutdown, to avoid new loading issues on the shutdown page.

Q2: How will search engines handle my website during the shutdown? Will this affect SEO?A2: If the website is only undergoing short-term maintenance, the practice is to have the server return a 503 Service Unavailable HTTP status code and inform the search engine that this is a temporary closure.As a rule, the shutdown page of Anqi CMS is displayed by default, and you can set it to return a 503 status code when the website is in shutdown status on the server configuration level (such as Nginx/Apache).This can inform search engines that your website will be restored soon, thus minimizing the negative impact on SEO rankings.If left closed for a long time, the search engine may treat it as a 404 page and remove the index, so it is very important to configure the communication of the closed station page and the server status code.

Q3: After the website is set to closed station status, can I still normally access the background management system?A3: Yes, the shutdown status of the website usually only affects the access to the front-end pages, and the access to the back-end management system is usually independent. You can still access it through您的域名/system/(Default path) Access the AnQi CMS backend to perform maintenance operations, modify settings, or restart the website. This ensures that you have full management privileges during the website's shutdown period.