As a business owner or website administrator, there are plenty of reasons why you might want to hide WordPress pages from public view. For example, if you’re running an online membership site or have a small business that sells premium content, then hiding certain pages, posts, categories, or your entire site from public view is essential. Show
The only problem is that WordPress comes with very limited options for hiding pages, posts, and categories. Not to mention, the options that are available to you aren’t particularly user-friendly. The good news is that by the time you’re done reading this article, you’ll walk away knowing exactly how to:
And the best part? At the end, we’ll show you how to do all this in under 15 minutes using a great plugin, Password Protected Categories! Password Protected Categories Hide parts of WordPress in under 15 minutes! Buy Plugin What’s wrong with the hidden content features in WordPress itself?If you’ve been using WordPress for some time now, you probably already know the content management system (CMS) comes with hidden content features out of the box. However, these built-in options are pretty clumsy and not at all user-friendly, to say the least. More specifically, WordPress’ built-in hidden content features will leave you password protecting individual pages and posts. There are two main reasons why:
Fortunately, there’s a better way to hide WordPress pages, posts, and categories that doesn't involve messing around with PHP files. The solution: Password Protected CategoriesThe Password Protected Categories plugin makes it incredibly easy for WordPress site owners to hide just about any type of content on your WordPress site. This includes posts, pages, categories, and custom post types. If you’re running an online business or membership site, or if you sell online courses, it might be easier for you to hide WordPress categories instead of password-protecting individual posts and pages. Password Protected Categories key featuresHere’s why protecting entire categories is better than hiding individual posts and pages: Protect entire categories at once
Easier for you and your visitors
How to hide parts of WordPress (in 3 easy steps)Here, we’ll show you how to hide WordPress posts, pages, and categories in three easy steps: Feel free to follow along or use the jump links to skip ahead to a specific step. Step #1: Install the Password Protected Categories pluginIf you haven’t done so already, get the Password Protected Categories plugin. You’ll receive the plugin files along with a license key via email. Log into your WordPress site and install and activate the plugin by heading over to Plugins → Add New from the WP admin. Once that’s done, navigate to Settings → Protected Categories to enter your license key. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen to proceed. Step #2: Configure the plugin settingsFrom the same screen (i.e. go to Settings → Protected Categories from the WP admin panel), you can configure the plugin’s Category Protection and Login Form settings. Category ProtectionThe Password Protected Categories plugin lets you decide how quickly you’d like to hide WordPress categories after they’ve been unlocked. In other words, you can decide how long the category remains unlocked before the password automatically expires. By default, this is set to 10 days. In addition, you can tick the checkbox next to the Show Categories? option to show password-protected categories, posts, and pages to visitors. If you enable this option, the protected categories will appear in public areas of your WordPress site. This also includes sidebars and navigation menus. Private, user and role restricted categoriesChoose what will happen if someone tries to access hidden content while they're logged out. Login FormWhen a visitor tries to access a password protected page, post, or category on your WordPress site, they’ll be prompted to fill out a WP login form. The Login Form settings let you configure the look and feel of the WP login form that’s displayed on password-protected categories and posts. You can set the:
Depending on the WordPress theme or child theme you’re using, the login form (or login page) will look something like this on the front-end: Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen to proceed. Step #3: Hide WordPress pages, posts, or categoriesOnce you’ve configured the plugin settings, you can hide WordPress pages, posts, and categories. Here’s what you need to do to make categories hidden, password-protected or private: Head over to Posts → Categories from the WP admin panel. Create a new category and give it a name, slug, and description. You can also create a hidden sub-category. Simply use the Parent Category option to choose the correct parent category. If your parent category isn’t protected then only the content you add to the sub-category will be protected. Use the Visibility settings to either password-protect the WordPress category or hide it based on users or roles. If you choose to password-protect the WordPress category, you’ll have the option to set one (or more passwords). You can also restrict the hidden category to specific users or roles. Feel free to mix and match the different types of protection, as they are designed to work alongside each other. For example, you can password protect a category and give the password to people who don't have an account; and you can also unlock it for specific logged in roles. Click the Add New Category button to continue.
Bonus tipsBy now you already know how you hide WordPress posts, pages, and categories on your site. Here, we’ll share some bonus tips that will let you hide WordPress content in advanced ways. How to make your entire site privateYou can use the Password Protected Categories plugin to hide WordPress by making your entire site private. The easiest way to do this is by putting all of your site’s content – posts, pages, and custom post types – under one or more protected categories. For example, you can create a category called Private WordPress and sort all of your content under it. Then, you would simply use the Visibility options of the Private WordPress category to hide it from public view. How to hide WooCommerceIf you’re running a WooCommerce store and are looking for a way to hide WordPress content or product categories, you can use the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin instead. The WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin is built specifically for WooCommerce stores. In addition to this, it comes with extra features to hide product categories based on individual users or roles. Similar to Password Protected Categories, you can also protect all of the products sorted under a specific category, including sub-categories, automatically. In other words, the products and sub-categories automatically inherit the same protection. They'll also automatically be hidden from search engines like Google.
It is perfect for online store owners that need a way to sell to both wholesale and retail customers. Store owners can also use this to offer discounted rates to customers who create an account on their site. Where to get the pluginTo get started, all you have to do is install Password Protected Categories – the easy plug and play solution that’s helping people all over the world hide WordPress posts, pages, and categories in a few simple steps. |