To make a page hidden within your live Showit site, the primary method involves controlling how visitors access it. Unlike having a specific "hide" checkbox for publishing, hiding a page on the live site means preventing users from finding it through your main navigation or other links.
Based on the provided information, the key strategies are centered around link management.
Hiding a Page on Your Live Showit Site
The fundamental way to hide a page after it has been published on your live Showit site is to ensure there are no accessible paths for visitors to click on leading to that page.
According to the reference:
To hide a page within your live site you can either remove all links to this page, or point your links to a coming soon page.
This means the page still technically exists and is published, but it becomes inaccessible to the average visitor browsing your site normally.
Method 1: Remove All Links
This is the most direct approach. You need to go through your entire Showit site design and remove any element (text links, button links, image links, navigation menus) that is set to navigate to the page you want to hide.
Steps:
- Identify all links: Check your main site navigation menu on all relevant pages.
- Inspect page content: Review canvases on various pages (like the footer, sidebar, or main body content) for any other links pointing to the target page.
- Remove or change links:
- Select the element (button, text box, etc.) that contains the link.
- Go to the "Click Actions" tab in the right-hand properties panel.
- Change the click action from "Page" (pointing to the hidden page) to "None" or delete the element if it's just a link.
- Publish your site: After removing the links, publish your Showit site for the changes to take effect.
Practical Example:
As highlighted in the reference:
For example, you can hide your live blog while you work on it. To do so, go through your site and make sure that every link to your blog has been temporarily removed.
If you were updating your Showit blog but didn't want visitors to see the work in progress, you would remove the "Blog" link from your main navigation, footer, and any other places it appears on your site.
Method 2: Point Links to a Coming Soon Page
If you don't want to remove links entirely but want to prevent access to the specific page, you can temporarily redirect those links to a different page, such as a "Coming Soon" or "Under Maintenance" page.
Steps:
- Create a "Coming Soon" page: Design a simple page in Showit indicating the content is temporarily unavailable.
- Identify all links: Check your site for links pointing to the page you want to hide.
- Change link destination:
- Select the element containing the link.
- Go to the "Click Actions" tab.
- Change the "Page" destination to point to your newly created "Coming Soon" page instead of the original hidden page.
- Publish your site: Publish the changes.
This method keeps your site structure and navigation intact but directs visitors away from the hidden content.
Important Considerations
- Search Engine Visibility: Removing links helps reduce the likelihood of visitors finding the page, but it does not guarantee that search engines will immediately de-index the page if it has been live for a while. For SEO control, you may need to use canonical tags or potentially request removal via search engine webmaster tools if the page was previously indexed and you want it gone permanently from results.
- Direct Access: If someone has the direct URL to the hidden page (e.g., from a bookmark or previous visit), they can still access it unless you add password protection or other restrictions (which are typically page settings outside of just hiding links). The methods described above primarily focus on preventing discovery through internal site navigation.
In summary, making a page hidden on Showit after publication is achieved by removing or redirecting all internal links that point to that page, effectively making it undiscoverable through normal website browsing.
| Method | Description | Benefit | Drawback |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remove All Links | Delete or disable click actions pointing to page. | Simple, direct hiding from navigation. | Might require site-wide check for all links. |
| Point to Coming Soon | Change links to redirect to a placeholder page. | Keeps navigation elements visible/active. | Requires creating and managing a placeholder page. |
