How to Make Pages or Posts Private in WordPress?

WordPress is all about publishing content. Then it wouldn’t make much sense for anyone to make their WordPress pages and posts private, right? In fact, there are many situations where custom posts and pages come in handy. In this article, we’ll talk about these situations and show you how to set your pages and posts to private, whether you’re using one of the premium WordPress themes or the default, free one.

What Is a Custom Page or Post in WordPress?

As the name suggests, a private WordPress page or post is not public. Depending on the settings, it’s only visible to one or a few users, that’s all. Even if a visitor has the URL of a particular page, if it’s set to “private”, they won’t be able to see it.

A special page/post contains exclusive content visible only to those with the correct permissions. To understand permissions, let’s first examine WordPress user roles:

The only user roles that can view, edit and delete private pages are Admin and Editor. Initial permission to set custom pages/posts can only be given by Admin.

Basically, private pages and posts are not accessible to anyone except the Admin and Editor. For everyone else, the page/post is strictly prohibited until the visibility setting is changed from “Private” to “Public”.

What Is the Purpose of Custom Pages and Posts?

Now that we know what custom pages and posts are, let’s take a look at what they are used for.

Custom pages/posts are actually quite useful in many situations:

Should I Use Special Pages/Posts for Sensitive Information?

Private pages and posts or password-protected pages can be used to share private or classified content to a certain degree, as they are restricted and not accessible to everyone. However, this does not mean that sensitive information is suitable for publication.

First of all, private pages/posts are visible to anyone with admin and editor credentials. Some websites have multiple users with these roles, which does not exactly guarantee the highest level of security.

Also, private pages/posts don’t act as a safe for sensitive information. They are not safe enough. So if you intend to use them for customers’ proprietary information, contracts, and similar materials, don’t.

How to Set Up a Custom WordPress Page or Post

Now that you know all about custom pages and posts in WordPress, it’s time to learn how to do them. You don’t need to install anything – WordPress comes with built-in options for creating custom pages and posts.

Special Pages

1. Log into your Control Panel and navigate to: Pages. Now click either one, depending on whether you want to change the privacy settings of an existing page or create a new private page. all pages or add new. if you clicked on all pagesSelect the page you want to set as private.

2. You will see visibility option to the right of the editor. click To organise next to where he said people To change the setting

3. Select Special and click OK.

4. Finally, click on update if you edit the visibility of an existing page, or Publishto create a new custom page.

Private Posts

The steps are similar to making a page private.

1. Log into your Control Panel and navigate to: posts. To make an existing post private, select the post and click on it. Click to create a new private post add new.

2. As in the pages, visibility option will be located to the right of the editor. click To organise and then Special.

3. Click update if you are making an existing post private or Publish To create a new custom post

And that’s it!

final thoughts

As you can see, making pages or posts private in WordPress takes only a few clicks of your mouse and can be very useful in a variety of contexts. Even if they are password protected, private pages contain important or sensitive information, and always be mindful of who you assign user roles to and their capabilities.