A general-purpose, SEO-friendly protest and blackout utility for WordPress. Schedule a period or manually force your website to go dark with customiza …
Active installations10Adoption metric — not a quality score
WordPress.org ratingNo WordPress.org ratings yet
Official packageDirect from WordPress.org
Repository metrics are context, not quality scores. Active installations measure adoption and can strongly reflect a plugin’s age and historical popularity. Ratings, recent updates and “Tested up to” metadata also do not guarantee modern code, error-free operation, security, feature completeness or suitability for a particular site. Why active installs don’t tell the whole story →
WP PlugIndex currently records Go Dark version 1.1.0 as active, updated 4mo ago and tested up to WordPress 7.0.
Overview
About this plugin
“Go Dark” is a general-purpose, SEO-friendly utility that allows you to easily take your website offline (blackout) in protest of political issues, climate advocacy, net neutrality, censorship opposition, or other custom causes.
When your website is “dark”, it returns a 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable HTTP status code. This informs search engines that the offline state is temporary, preserving your SEO rankings, and provides browsers with a Retry-After header.
Live Demo
Try the plugin instantly in your browser using WordPress Playground
Features
Flexible Status Modes: Keep the plugin inactive, schedule a precise start/end blackout window, or force dark mode active immediately.
Modern Premium Themes: Choose from three highly polished design presets:
Minimalist Blackout: A sleek, modern dark mode design with custom glow accents.
Glassmorphism Alert: A stunning backdrop-blurred glass card over vibrant ambient glowing shapes.
Classic Protest: An updated typewriter aesthetic utilizing a dark wood texture.
Cause Presets: Quick-load templates for Net Neutrality, Climate Action, censorship opposition, and standard maintenance.
Interactive Live Countdown: Real-time Javascript-powered countdown clock showing visitors exactly when your website will return.
WordPress Media Library Integration: Directly upload or select custom logos and images to display on the splash page.
Call to Action: Insert custom URLs and labels (e.g. to sign a petition or learn more).
Credits
Design and legacy Sign/Seal was created by Cheryl Eisenhard ( http://cheryleisenhard.com/ )
Development by George Stephanis ( http://stephanis.info/ )
Wood Grain Background taken from http://webtreats.mysitemyway.com/8-tileable-dark-wood-texture-patterns/
WordPress.org metadata
Plugin tags
Topics listed for this plugin in the WordPress.org directory.
go dark
internet freedom
blackout
maintenance
protest
Compatibility & maintenance
Compatibility & maintenance
Tested up to WordPress 7.0
Not yet marked as tested with WordPress 7.1. WordPress.org currently lists Tested up to 7.0.
Current WordPress releaseWordPress 7.1
WordPress.org Tested up to7.0
Minimum requirementsWordPress 5.3 · PHP not listed
Update activity15 Jun 20264mo ago
“Tested up to” is directory metadata supplied by the plugin author. WP PlugIndex does not turn an older declaration into a claim that the plugin is incompatible.
Changes recorded by WP PlugIndex
Recent tracked changes
No tracked version or compatibility changes have been recorded by WP PlugIndex yet.
Tracking & source
WP PlugIndex tracks public WordPress.org directory metadata and records selected version, compatibility and availability changes as they are detected.
