How to show an "Under Construction" page on your website

What is an under construction page?

An under construction page is a short message that visitors see instead of your site. It tells them you are busy and will be back soon. It is better than showing a broken page.

A web server shows a file called index.html (or index.php) first when someone visits your site. If we put our own index.html in front, visitors see our message.

Before you start

Steps

1. Log in to your hosting control panel. The details are in your Hostvento welcome email.
2. Open File Manager.
3. Go to your website folder. It is often called public_html.
4. Find the file index.php or index.html. Right-click it and choose Rename. Change the name to index-old.php (or index-old.html).
5. Click New File and name it index.html.
6. Right-click the new file and choose Edit.
7. Paste this simple page:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Coming Soon</title>
</head>
<body style="text-align:center;font-family:Arial;margin-top:100px;">
<h1>We are working on our website</h1>
<p>Please come back soon.</p>
</body>
</html>

This is a basic web page with a heading and a line of text. Change the words to suit you.

8. Click Save Changes.

   

9. Visit your website. Press Ctrl and F5 to refresh. You should see your message.

   

If the old site still shows

Some sites use index.php before index.html. That is why we rename the old index file in step 4. If you use WordPress, a caching plugin may also keep showing the old page. Clear the cache.

Bring your site back

1. Delete or rename the index.html you made.
2. Rename index-old.php back to index.php.

   

3. Refresh your site.

Quick recap

• Rename your current index file. Do not delete it.

  

  

• Create a new index.html with your message.
• Check the site in your browser.
• To go live again, remove the new file and restore the old one.