An Easier Way to Share Progress on Your Website

Do you build sites for others? Have you ever struggled to coordinate and manage access to in-progress projects? How often do you have to help clients reset their passwords? We feel your pain, and we’re excited to announce Site Preview Links, a feature that will let you easily share a “Coming Soon” Business or eCommerce site.

With Site Preview Links, you can generate a unique preview link for your in-progress Business or eCommerce site, allowing your team or clients to access the Coming Soon site without having to log in. This way, you can easily show off your work-in-progress and get feedback from your stakeholders without having to resend invites, update user roles, or reset passwords.

You can create and access the preview link directly from the Sites page:

You can then share the link with your team or client. When they access the preview link, they’ll bypass the Coming Soon screen and be able to view your site.

Site Preview Links is an easy-to-use feature that will save you time and hassle. It’s perfect for anyone who builds websites for others, whether you are an agency with a growing client roster, a contractor with just a handful of projects, or simply someone who knows a lot of people who need websites.

WordPress.com uses a secure HMAC hashing algorithm to generate Preview Link that is unique across all sites. The possible number of unique hashes is 2256, which heavily exceeds the number of grains of sand in the world!

Users who access your site using the shared preview link can continue navigating through the site, as WordPress.com uses a browser cookie to preserve the link value for the user’s session.

The link won’t expire, but you can disable it anytime. Users who already have access to your site using the preview link won’t be able to access the site anymore once you disable the link.

If you change your mind, you can always enable the link again, and we will generate a new, unique, ready-to-share URL.

If you need help with Preview Links, check out our more detailed guide.

Try Preview Links today and see how it can help you save time and make your life easier. Your clients will be impressed with the convenience, and you’ll be able to get their feedback faster.

Preview Links are just one of the reasons WordPress.com is the best managed WordPress hosting on the planet alongside other features we released this year: the Sites page, SSH access, SSH keys, and our data center picker. If you are interested in more details, you can follow our Developer Blog.

What other feature would you find valuable? How could we make WordPress.com an even more powerful place to build a website? Feel free to leave a comment or submit your ideas in our short feature request form.