How to Redirect Visitors to a Maintenance Page in WordPress

Over the years, we’ve refreshed the design and added new features across WPBeginner and our other websites. And every time we make major updates, we make sure visitors see a helpful maintenance page letting them know the site will be back soon.

A good maintenance page does more than just inform. It sets expectations with visitors, helps avoid broken links or incomplete transactions, and even protects your SEO during downtime.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to easily redirect visitors to a custom maintenance page in WordPress, step by step. That way, you can keep your site looking professional while you work behind the scenes.

Why Redirect Users to a WordPress Maintenance Page?

You might wonder why you can’t just let users see the work in progress on your WordPress site. While it’s tempting to just leave things, using a maintenance page offers several advantages.

For example, a well-designed maintenance page shows you care about the user experience, even during downtime. It’s far more professional than a broken site or confusing error messages.

Being upfront about the maintenance also reassures visitors that you’re actively working behind the scenes, which can build trust and manage expectations.

Redirecting users to a maintenance page also helps with WordPress SEO.

When your site is down or broken, search engines may penalize your rankings. That’s why your maintenance mode must send an HTTP 503 status code to search engines. This status code signals “temporarily unavailable, please come back later.”

If search engines encounter a broken site or standard 404 (Not Found) errors, they might start removing your pages from search results. The 503 code safely pauses your SEO status and tells Google to preserve your rankings because the downtime is temporary.

Plus, a maintenance page can be used to collect email addresses, promote social media channels, or even offer a sneak peek of what’s to come, keeping visitors engaged even while your site is offline.

Now that you know the benefits, let’s explore how you can create and redirect visitors to a maintenance page. Here’s a quick overview of all the things we’ll cover:

Let’s jump right in!

Creating a Maintenance Page in WordPress

First, you’ll need a maintenance page. We recommend SeedProd because it’s easy to use and includes everything you need to create a professional maintenance page.

The free version comes with a drag-and-drop builder and customizable elements like contact forms and countdown timers. Now, the free version has limited templates, so if you have the paid Basic plan (starting around $79/yr), you’ll get 50+ professionally designed templates.

This makes it easy to create a maintenance page and redirect users to it without coding.

SeedProd is highly rated by WordPress users and trusted by over 1,000,000 websites. One reviewer noted: “I use this just for maintenance mode pages. For that, it is excellent with plenty of pre-made pages to choose from. Best plugin I have tried for this purpose.”

In fact, it’s so flexible that some of our business partners use SeedProd to custom build their websites. If you want to learn more about the plugin, check out our detailed SeedProd review.

More on Why We Recommend SeedProd Over Other Maintenance Plugins

While there are other maintenance mode plugins available (such as WP Maintenance Mode, Maintenance, and Rocket Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon), we recommend SeedProd because:

• Great free template options: While SeedProd’s paid Basic plan (starting around $79/yr) unlocks over 50+ templates, the free version still provides a solid range of high-quality designs compared to limited alternatives.
• Better user experience: The drag-and-drop editor is more intuitive than competing plugins
• Correct SEO handling: SeedProd sends the proper HTTP 503 status code to protect your search rankings
• Dual functionality: It handles both maintenance mode AND coming soon pages in one plugin
• Room to grow: If you later want to create landing pages or custom WordPress themes, SeedProd can handle that too without switching plugins

Plus, for a simple maintenance page redirect, SeedProd’s free version has everything you need to create a professional page in minutes.

In this tutorial, we will use the SeedProd Lite version, which is free. There is also a premium version that offers more features and customization options. Plus, there is an option to show the page on your entire site or on specific pages.

First, you will need to install and activate the SeedProd plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you should see the SeedProd setup wizard. To configure the plugin, simply click the ‘Get Started’ button and follow the onscreen instructions.

Next, you can head to SeedProd » Landing Pages from the WordPress admin area.

From here, simply click the ‘Set up a Maintenance Mode Page’ button.

After that, SeedProd will show you multiple page templates to choose from.

The free version offers limited template choices. However, if you subscribe to SeedProd’s newsletter, you can unlock additional templates. For more extensive template options, the paid Basic plan (starting around $79/yr) includes 50+ professionally designed templates.

To select a template, simply hover over it and click the orange tick button.

After selecting a template, you should see a drag-and-drop page builder. Here, you can edit the design of your maintenance page by adding new blocks or rearranging existing blocks.

For example, the plugin lets you add standard blocks like headlines and images.

Or you can choose from advanced blocks like a contact form so that users can reach you if they have any questions about your scheduled maintenance.

You may also like to add a countdown timer telling users when your website will be back online.

If you click or select an existing block in the template, then you can further edit it.

For example, you can change the text, font, color, and style of the text.

Or simply remove the block if it does not match your requirements or brand theme.

After you’re done editing the maintenance page design, you can switch to the ‘Page Settings’ tab from the top.

In the ‘General’ settings, you can enter a page title if you want.

Next, you’ll need to change the ‘Page Status’ from ‘Draft’ to ‘Publish.’

When that’s done, click the ‘Save’ button at the top and exit the page builder.

Redirecting Visitors to the Maintenance Page in WordPress

As you close the page builder, you may see a popup asking you to activate the maintenance mode.

Go ahead and click the ‘Yes, Activate’ button.

You can also set up the WordPress maintenance redirect by going to SeedProd » Landing Pages from the WordPress dashboard.

In the Maintenance Mode section, you can click the toggle to ‘Active’ to enable the page.

Next, you can visit your website to see the newly created maintenance page.

Now, if a visitor pays a visit, they will see this page instead of the actual website.

Bonus Resources 🔗: More Maintenance Page Guides

We hope this article helped you learn how to redirect visitors to a maintenance page in WordPress. Next, you might also want to explore our guides on:

• Maintenance Page Ideas You Can Use on Your WordPress Site
• How to Put Your WordPress Site in Maintenance Mode
• How to Create Beautiful Coming Soon Pages in WordPress
• Crucial WordPress Maintenance Tasks to Perform Regularly
• WordPress Maintenance – Ultimate Guide for Beginners

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