There are several reasons why you might want to password protect pages on your WordPress site (WP
- You want a secure place to share content with current or potential customers.
- Using your website only to share images, stories, or communicate with family or friends.
- Restrict content for invited webinar participants only.
- Includes content intended for paying members and not the general public.
- Blocking certain areas of content for business sites based on the employee’s role in the company.
- Provide third-party access to private content of medical or educational institutions.
Below are several ways to password protect individual pages or posts, specific categories, or your entire WordPress website.
Password protection for a page or WordPress post
The easiest way to restrict access to a post or page is to edit your visibility settings in WP
- Start by opening or editing a page in your WP dashboard. On the right, under Publish, click Edit next to the Visibility field.
- Publish the page and see the results. Now, when someone views this page, they will be prompted for a password.
- Only those with the correct password will have access to your content. This process is useful if you want to protect multiple pages or posts.
Password Protect Post Categories in Your WordPress Site
If your site has certain categories of posts that you want to password protect, use the Access Category Password plugin.
Download, install and activate the plugin.
Select to restrict access to messages in a specific category by assigning a password. Both the excerpt and the message content are replaced with a form that visitors will need to fill out to gain access.
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WP created channels changed. You can define a description in the settings that users will see. The parameters are defined as follows:
- Website visitors with a password will need to access restricted categories.
- Select the categories you want to protect by checking the appropriate categories.
- The Provision to Users section refers to the roles of your website users. The ones you are checking do not need to enter a password.
- If you check only one post, the content of the post will appear on your home page or archive pages. Only a specific message page from restricted categories will be protected. Do not check this box by default.
Other settings for this password protection plugin are defined below:
- Add a message that users will see before the password form in the informational message.
- Select what you want to display in the Password field and put it in the input field.
- Specify the text to be displayed as an error message if a visitor uses an incorrect password.
- For the text of the checkout button, enter what you want the button to say, for example, “Access”.
- If you don’t like the style of the form, add your own style.
- Add channel description text.
How to password protect part of a WordPress post or page
You can also password protect only part of a public page or post using another WP plugin called Passster – Password Protection.
Like all WP plugins, download, install and activate it.
In your WP dashboard, go to Plugin Settings. Create a shortcode and password or generate one automatically.
In WP editor, paste the shortcode in the section you want to protect and write the content.
Visitors will see all of your content except what you put in the shortcode section.
Password protect your entire WordPress site
To password protect your entire WordPress site, you can use a third party plugin again. There are several password protected plugins to choose from.
We will discuss a free password protected plugin from Ben Huson.
- Download, install and activate the plugin. To customize the settings, go to Settings> Password Protection.
- Check the box next to Password Protection Status to enable the plugin. If you check the box next to any of the password permission options, these visitors won’t need a password to access your site.
- Add your password in the New Password field and click Save Changes.
- After activating the plugin, when a visitor visits your site, they will see a shortened version of the WP login page and will be asked for a password.
Keep in mind that the plugin will only protect your WP site. If someone has a direct link to a file or image on your server, they will be able to see that file.
As you can see, there are several ways to password protect your WordPress site. For individual posts or pages, you can use the built-in WordPress functionality. Other parts, sections or the entire site will require third party plugins.
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