Do you want to know how to make the WordPress site private while there is no option? The majority of websites are created to attract new visitors and consumers. While many website owners want to keep their internet doors as open as possible, some choose to create private WordPress sites.
It’s all about increasing traffic, exposure, and engagement when you’re online and sharing content. But what if we want to be online but just in a restricted manner? What do we do online when we don’t want the entire world to read our material, interact with us? Is it possible to limit external access to a WordPress blog or website? Yes!
And it’s something we’ll discuss in required detail with you so you can understand and apply it to your website. You can now build a WordPress website offline and install WordPress locally without purchasing anything or telling anyone and hide from the internet or people.
How to Make the WordPress Site Private
Fortunately, hiding your data from search engines and the general public is simple using the WordPress platform. Whether you’re developing a WordPress website and want to make it private temporarily or on a more permanent basis, this is true. These are some of the elements we will be focusing on in this guide.
- Why would I need to hide my site?
- How do I make my entire WordPress website private?
- Hide website from search engines visibility
- How to make the WordPress site private with a plugin
- Show a coming soon page in WordPress with a plugin
- How to make the WordPress site private without a plugin (advanced)
- Remove website from Google search
- How to Make Your WordPress Blog Private
- Block users without an account from posts or pages
- Password secure pages or posts
- What are the implications of a private WordPress website?
- Which approach will you use?
You can also check how to install a WordPress SSL certificate for free and protect your data from attackers.
Why Would I Want to Hide my Site?
Many expert developers will retain a newly developed website secret until it is ready to go live. It enables the user to populate a new website with information and fix any difficulties without an audience. The developer will only make their site public after adding content and finalizing the theme. Other websites should never be made available to the general public. For example, suppose a website created for family members or used inside a small business.
These kinds of websites include content that is only meant for a small number of people. In situations like these, making a WordPress site private permanently is quite acceptable and often recommended. However, before you continue, determine whether you want to hide a part of your website or all of it. Your requirements will determine the optimum strategy. In this article, we’ll show you how you can hide an entire site or a specific post through different methods.
How do I Make my Entire WordPress Website Private?
If you don’t want your website to appear in search engines and hide your published content. You can hide the site through WordPress’s built-in function that restricts the search engine not to show this site. You can also limit any public access to your website. To do so, you’ll need to install a plugin such as My Private Site.
There’s a significant difference between a search engine-hidden site and a private site. Visitors that know your website address can continue to browse even if you’ve disabled search indexing. So you have to restrict the user through the My Private Site Plugin.
Hide website from search engines visibility
WordPress has a built-in option for individuals who wish to keep their websites hidden from search engines like Google and Bing. You may find this option at the bottom of the website settings and click on Readings.
Once the new page appears, scroll it down, and you will see the Discourage Search Engines From Indexing This Site. Then you have to check the Checkbox and Click on Save Changes.
If your website is brand new and you haven’t made an announcement about it, chances are no one knows the URL. And, as long as your work-in-progress doesn’t include any sensitive content, this setting could be sufficient to keep your WordPress site private until it’s ready to publish. Of course, it won’t stop anyone from viewing your website, but it will make it much more challenging to discover the URL.
This option is an excellent method to keep your website off search engines for a while when enabled. However, if you can’t risk people viewing your website before (or after) it’s done, you’ll need to take further actions. The next level of defense is a plugin that prevents any public access.
How to make the WordPress site private with a plugin
Force Login
Many plugins can provide these services, but this plugin will be helpful and with more than 30,000+ active installations. One of the most popular privacy plugins is Force Login. It’s a basic and light plugin that needs users to log in before interacting with the site. You’re done after you’ve installed and activated it. Only those with user rights may view your WordPress site, which is private! Force Login is compatible with WordPress Multisite, configurable, translation-ready, and WPML certified.
If you want to, you can circumvent Force Login, specify whitelist URLs, add exceptions, and more with a bit of code. It’s the most uncomplicated and most user-friendly WordPress private plugin available. If you change your mind about privacy, click the Deactivate button, and it will restore your site.
My Private Site
If hiding your site from search engines isn’t enough, you may use a free plugin like My Private Site to block outside visitors. Anyone who visits your website without an account will be routed to the WordPress login screen using this method.
Your whole WordPress site will be made private with My Private Site. So even if they know the URL, no one will be able to see your website as long as it is operational. This extra level of security makes My Private Site ideal for private firms and organizations that never want their confidential information to be shared with the public.
You have access to the WordPress admin dashboard for this plugin, hover over the plugins, and click on the Add New button. Once the new screen appears, search for the plugin My Private Site and then install and activate the plugin.
Return to the dashboard after activating the plugin, and there you will see this plugin in the left sidebar menu. Now hover over the My Private Site and click on Site Privacy. Once it opens a new window, you’ll find Enable Login Privacy’s; check it and click on Save Privacy Status. Now you’ll see your entire site is private, and it will take you to the WordPress login page.
Next, go to the Membership Settings screen in your control panel and ensure the Anyone May Register option is turned off. Anyone may come along, make an account, and read your private WordPress site while it is enabled.
You can continue to browse and administer your private WordPress site as usual as an administrator. However, you may also establish accounts for your associates and customers to provide them access to your website. Go to your WordPress control panel’s Users section and Add users as many accounts as you need. They’ll be able to visit your site as a subscriber, but they won’t have access to any of the site’s advanced admin features.
Show a coming soon page in WordPress with a plugin.
To show the coming soon page has multiple benefits that developers or owners can get. For example, unexpected login screens might confuse users who have come to your website searching for information. Instead, utilize a commercial plugin like Divi builder if the user experience is a high priority.
Divi builder will help the developer show or hide a customized coming soon page according to their needs. Then, when the page is activated, anybody who visits your site will get a polished coming soon page instead of the standard WordPress login screen. So you can reach the visitors through different techniques. For example, you can add the subscriber or membership that will help you in the future on the coming soon page. You can also add the countdown and other text that can grab your customers.
How to make the WordPress site private without a plugin (advanced)
For simple operations, developers tend to avoid plugins. However, these developers can frequently achieve the same results with just a few lines of code. Without using a plugin, there are a few options for making a WordPress site private. The first approach needs a simple change to a theme’s functions.php file and will work in most hosting situations.
For function.php, you have to log in to your WordPress admin dashboard. Then hover over the Appearance and click on the Theme Editor. Next, on the right sidebar, you will see the list of .php files, and you have to select the fuction.php file and paste the code here.
function make_wordpress_site_private(){
global $wp;
if (!is_user_logged_in() && $GLOBALS['pagenow'] !== 'wp-login.php'){
wp_redirect(wp_login_url($wp -> request));
exit;
}
}
add_action('wp', 'make_wordpress_site_private');
Once you insert the code into the functions.php file, the snippet will have the same impact as any plugin. The user that has access to the website will be able to visit the site without any restrictions, while everyone will be sent to the login page. If you add this code to your site, remove it before getting live or public access.
Remove Websites from Google Search
If you want to hide and then visible your new website efficiently, timing is crucial. No one will be able to visit your website if you neglect to remove access restrictions once it goes live. However, if you make a WordPress website private too late, then search engines may locate and index it before you’re ready for it to be seen by the public.
Google allows developers to delete particular URLs from search results. Of course, you’ll need to set up your site with Google Search Console to file a removal request, but everyone who manages a website of any size should be using this free service anyway.
You can remove the WordPress site by using the following steps, and you’ll see how easy that is. First, if you don’t use this google tool already, you have to set up a Search Console. However, we didn’t go deep into how to set up the Google search console.
Navigate to your Search Console property and then click on the Removals option in the sidebar to remove a WordPress site from Google search results. Then, under the Temporary Removals page, click the New Request option.
Search Console Temporary Removals
Once you click on it, the New Request popup should appear, and then select Temporarily Remove URL and insert the WordPress URL that you want to remove from google search. If you want to remove a specific URL, then select Remove this URL only, or for all site prefixes, select to Remove all URLs with this prefix, and click on the Next button to send your request.
All removals performed with the tool are only temporary, and they will expire after a few months. You can reject the removal from the same Search Console screen if you require your pages to restore before an expired request expires. You’ll also need to make your WordPress site private using one of the ways discussed above to remove WordPress content from Google Search permanently.
How to Make Your WordPress Blog Private
To restrict access to your entire website, you’ll need to install a plugin or apply custom code, as you’ve learned. However, if you only want to protect specific pages or posts, we’ll show you how to make your WordPress blog private through the simple process.
First, log in to your WordPress admin dashboard, navigate that post you want to restrict, and click the Edit button. Then, you’ll see the Status & Visibility section on the right sidebar, click on the tab labeled Visibility, and select Visibility as Private.
Block users without an account from posts or pages
It would help if you want to make it private for a specific blog restriction. Public, Private, and password-protected content visibility options are available by default. The default for all new content is the public setting, which is self-explanatory. Choose Private instead of Public if you want to restrict access to people who don’t have an account.
Anyone who visits the website without having an account will receive an error message indicating that the Content Was Not Found. This notification is identical to the one that appears when a page or post does not exist. To view this notification in action, go to the impacted page in a private browser window.
However, unlike previous sitewide privacy settings, these private content settings will prohibit registered users with lower roles. In addition, access to your private WordPress pages and posts will be blocked by anyone who does not have an editor or administrator account.
Password secure pages or posts
A third and last option for block editors is to make a page or post-password-protected, and it is usable for entire WordPress posts or pages. The password-protected option will hide the content if a user cannot enter a correct password after submitting a request.
Select Password Protected from the editor’s Visibility selection to enable this functionality to any content. After you’ve decided, you’ll need to choose a password from the same dropdown menu.
The password you provide has nothing to do with any WordPress user accounts or the login system. Instead, anyone who has the correct password can view your content, regardless of whether or not they have an account.
Visitors will receive a password notification instead of page or post content at first. However, the user who entered the correct password accessed the content, and others did not view protected content.
What are the Implications of a Private WordPress Site?
When you disable indexing from the Reading settings box to make a WordPress site private, you’re telling search engines, “I don’t want anybody able to find my content.” Your website will still be accessible to the general public if they know the address or follow a link, but it will not be listed in Google or Bing webmaster tools.
After you’ve enabled indexing again, search engines will display your content in results, but not right away. Tools like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools might help you speed up the process.
You effectively block all public access when you restrict access with My Private Site or WordPress visibility settings.
Which Method will you Use?
You can hide your website from search engines and block public access to pages and posts using native WordPress settings. However, you’ll need to use a plugin or other code to charge for or prohibit access to your entire site.
Evaluate your skillset as well as the demands of your audience before moving further. The best strategy is to secure sensitive content on your website while enabling search engines and the general public to see everything else. However, you can use another method to hide the website from the internet entirely, and people would not see it. Make a website offline and install WordPress locally without purchasing anything or revealing anyone.
