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General Discussion

Posted by Cecil Quist
Cecil Quist
2,851 Points

How to Hide a Site during Development

How to I hide my website from being discoverable while I develop it? Thanks.

5 Answers

stoyantodorov
stoyantodorov
7,666 Points
stoyantodorov
stoyantodorov
7,666 Points

put this in a .htaccess file:

 order deny,allow
 deny from all
 allow from 127.0.0.1

If your website is not on your localhost change 127.0.0.1 to your real IP. This will allow only you to access it.

If you are only concerned about search engines discovering your website, you can suffice with putting the following code in robots.txt:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /
Cecil Quist
Cecil Quist
2,851 Points
Cecil Quist
Cecil Quist
2,851 Points

Thanks Stoyan, I don't think i have a .thaccess file. it's just a simple site; how do I do add that? thanks.

stoyantodorov
stoyantodorov
7,666 Points

Create a .htaccess file and put the code in. I'm assuming you are using Apache as a web server.

stoyantodorov
stoyantodorov
7,666 Points

You can just open your code editor, paste the code in, and save the file naming it ".htaccess" (without the quotes). Then put it into your site's folder.

Cecil Quist
Cecil Quist
2,851 Points
Cecil Quist
Cecil Quist
2,851 Points

No. I don't think so. I'm just using a basic Web Hosting for Students account recommended by treehouse.

stoyantodorov
stoyantodorov
7,666 Points

The hosting company is using Apache, so it will work. :) Just create the .htaccess file, change 127.0.0.1 in the code to your external IP, and finally upload the file on your website.

Cecil Quist
Cecil Quist
2,851 Points
Cecil Quist
Cecil Quist
2,851 Points

oh I see just like saving the with html or css extension. any particular place, folder or hierarchy i should be placing it, or just upload it anywhere?

stoyantodorov
stoyantodorov
7,666 Points

upload it to the root folder of your website (where your site's index.html or index.php is).

Cecil Quist
Cecil Quist
2,851 Points
Cecil Quist
Cecil Quist
2,851 Points

Thanks I will give it a shot. should be fairly simple. I appreciate your help