If you write a WordPress blog you probably want your posts and pages to be read by as many people as possible. After all, the entire reason for blogging is to share information with others.
But that being said, there might be times when you would like to make a certain post or page available only to a select group of people.
The purpose of this post is to explain how to limit who is allowed to view a post or page that you don’t want to make available to the general public.
There are two ways to limit who can see a given post or page on a WordPress blog, and both methods are very easy to implement:
1 – The first way to limit who is allowed to view a post or page is to mark it as “Private”.
A private post/page isn’t accessible to the public at all. It can only be viewed by registered users who are assigned the role of either “Editor” or “Administrator”.
There could be any number of reasons for wanting to make a post or page private. For example, a private post would make it easy for the owner(s) of a blog to share instructions and guidelines with all the authors who write for the blog.
2 – The second way to limit who is allowed to view a post or page is to protect it with a password.
Password-protected posts/pages are available to everyone who has the URL, but they must enter the password in order to view the content.
As with private posts, there could be any number of reasons why a blogger might want to publish a password-protected post or page. One example might be a page on a company blog that contains information intended to be viewed only by that company’s employees.
Whatever your reason for wanting to do it, it’s quite easy to limit access to a post/page in WordPress. Just follow the steps below for the method you wish to use.
To mark a post or page as “Private”:
1 – Write a new post or page as you normally do (or open an existing one in the editor).
2 – Find the “Visibility” setting in the right-hand column and click the Edit link.
3 – Select Private from the drop-down menu, then click OK.
4 – If this is a new post, click the Publish button to publish the post or page on the blog. If it’s an existing post that has already been published, click the Update button.
You’re done! Your private post/page is now live on your blog, but only registered “Editors” and “Administrators” of the blog will be able to access it.
To assign a password to a post or page:
1 – Write a new post or page as you normally do (or open an existing one in the editor).
2 – Find the “Visibility” setting in the right-hand column and click the Edit link.
3 – Select Password protected from the drop-down menu and type a password into the box provided.
(Note: Read this post for tips on choosing a password that’s hard to guess, but easy to remember.)
4 – Click OK.
5 – If this is a new post, click the Publish button to publish the post or page on the blog. If it’s an existing post that has already been published, click the Update button.
You’re done! Your password-protected post/page is now live on your blog, but only visitors who know the password will be able to view it.
That’s all there is to it. Now you know how to either “hide” a post or page by marking it “Private” or limit who can see it by assigning a password to it.