Pause your site

Sometimes you want people to stop finding your site for a while, but you do not want it gone. You might be on sabbatical, or in the middle of rewriting your profile. That is what Pause is for.

On the Overview page, next to Take offline, choose Pause. You can leave a short message for visitors, up to 200 characters, such as "On sabbatical until January. For anything urgent, write to the department office." You can also leave it empty.

What visitors see

Your name, a line saying the profile is taking a short break and will be back soon, and your message if you wrote one. They do not see your content.

What changes while you are paused

• Your address stays yours, and nothing is deleted.
• Booking and comments are switched off. A visitor cannot send you a request or leave a comment.
• Visits are not counted.
• Your subscription carries on as normal. A pause does not stop billing.

Bringing it back

The Overview page shows an amber Your site is paused card. Choose Resume my site and everything is back exactly as it was.

Pause or take offline?

• Pause keeps the site published and shows visitors a friendly note.
• Take offline puts the site back to a private draft, and visitors get a not-found page. It also clears any pause, so when you publish again the site comes back live.

Only a site that is online can be paused. If your plan has lapsed and the site has been suspended, see What happens if your subscription expires.