How to really hide pages while editing?

[PieterH]

Hi,

while my site is fully on-line, I'm working on new pages. Until they're finished I don't want them to be visible. So in the page editor I had made the "Hide page in navigator" button active. Indeed it does not appear in the internal navigation overview.

However, it is visible from outside! And Google shows already results from this unfinished page, in fact if you click the Google results it shows the entire still unfinished page while I'm still writing. I don't want this!

What do I need to do to make a page totally invisible from the outside?

(Don't tell me I shouldn't click on "upload" until it's completely finished, because the existing pages are refreshed regularly and can't wait till the new page is completely ready).

Thanks! Pieter

[Adam7]

Is your hidden page linked from another page, @PieterH? Google will follow those links to the hidden page even if the link isn't in your site navigation, and if it's added to your sitemap.xml it may also be crawled by Google. What I would do is also check the option to block the page from search engines. When you're ready for the page to go live, uncheck the option and publish, and then ask Google to fetch the page so they can index it.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6065812?hl=en

[PieterH · Accepted solution]

Hi Adam,

thanks a lot, this really helps. I switched the visibility setting from public to groups/members, and now one needs - theoretically - a password to get access to the page under construction. Verified it and it works!

Cheers, Pieter

[Adam7]

Awesome! Glad to hear that @PieterH.