Why are my sites password protected? What’s Privacy Mode?

Updated on October 16th, 2020

What’s Privacy Mode for?

Privacy Mode exists for a couple of reasons. The most common reason is that the site is a demo site, and is password protected until it’s paid for. But beyond that, most of the time, you don’t want users viewing your site before you’re ready, and you want to prevent Google from crawling the site before it goes live. Otherwise, your SEO score may suffer.

Note

For more information about demo sites, see the help article: What is a Demo Site?

While the most common reasons for Privacy Mode has to do with demo sites, you can still activate Privacy Mode on any site on Flywheel any time you like. This can be especially useful when you’re still working on a site, but don’t want the changes to be public just yet.

Managing Privacy Mode

Managing Privacy Mode in Flywheel is super easy, and is handled from the Overview page in the Flywheel control panel. On the right-hand side you’ll see a section marked “Privacy Mode”:

In this box you can easily change the username or password for a site, or turn Privacy Mode ON and OFF. You won’t be able to turn off Privacy Mode until the site is paid for. After that, you can toggle it whenever you’d like.

Warning

The password for the site is shown in plain text. We suggest that you refrain from using your personal password here. The password you choose is what you will share with others to grant them access to the site.

Viewing sites that have Privacy Mode enabled

When a user visits a site on Flywheel that has Privacy Mode enabled, they will be presented with a username and password field. To gain access to the site, enter the username and password for Privacy Mode into this box and click “Log In.”

Chrome:

Firefox:

Safari: