HOW TO CONTRIBUTE PROTECTING THE CONTENT ON YOUR WORDPRESS SITE

Credit: Web Development Services

For a popular content management system like WordPress, security is of the utmost importance. Millions of people use WordPress to share information with people around the world.

And since WordPress makes it so easy and gives you complete control over its content, there may be cases where you would like to share your content with a few selected people. You may want to share an album of wedding photographs with your guests or share selected articles only with your subscribers.

Whether you need to protect your entire website or restrict users' access to specific content, you can take a DIY approach by following a few simple steps.

In this post, we will show you how you can protect your WordPress website in four different ways. But before we start, let's take a look at why you might even consider password-protecting the content of your site in the first place.

WHY SHOULD THE PASSWORD PROTECTING THE CONTENT ON YOUR WEB SITE CONSIDER?

Whether you own a website or have a small online store, there may come a time when you need to password protect certain content on your website. Let's look at some of the main scenarios in which you might consider restricting access to your WordPress website.

Privilege paid. If your website has an exclusive area for premium members, you can restrict its access to general users by protecting it with a password. Many sites that sell courses and premium online classes have exclusive areas for members on their websites that only premium members have access to.

Private sales having a private sales area can be attractive to painters (or auctioneers) and you would want to restrict access to your works of art online. This is true for anyone who wants to show their work only to potential buyers.

Sensitive content if you're a blogger who occasionally writes articles or takes pictures that are not suitable for younger audiences, you can consider password-protecting that particular content. And if there is any content on your website that you would like to share with a handful of people, you can hide it from the public with a password that protects it.

Now that you have an idea of ​​why you may need to password protect the content of your WordPress website, let's look at how you can do it.

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE PROTECTING THE CONTENT ON YOUR WORDPRESS SITE

In this section, we will show you four different ways to password protect the content of your WordPress website based on the type of content you would like to restrict access to. We will see the protection of the password:

• ·         A publication (or page).
• ·         Parts of a post (or page).
• ·         A category of messages.
• ·         Your complete website.

# 1: FOR THE PASSWORD PROTECT A POST OR PAGE

If you need to password protect a publication or a page on your WordPress website, you can do so without installing any third-party add-ons. WordPress includes some built-in features that allow you to control what information you share with your visitors.

For the purposes of this tutorial, we will show you how you can protect a publication with a password, but you can also follow the same steps to protect a page on your website.

To get started, go to Publications> All publications in the WordPress panel and find the post you want to protect with a password. Open it in the Edit Publication screen.

In the Publish section in the right sidebar, click the Edit link next to Visibility: Public.

You should see three different options: public, password protected and private. Click on Password protected and enter a password. Once you have finished, click on the OK button to continue.

Once published (or updated), your post or page will look like this:

This publication will now only be visible to users who enter the password they have established.

# 2: TO CONTRIBUTE AGAINST PARTS OF YOUR POST OR PAGE

The simplest way to restrict users' access to a part of a publication (or page) is through the use of the Passer plugin.

Once you have activated the add-on, all you have to do is put a short code before and after the content block to which you want to restrict access. When someone sees the publication, you must enter the password you set to see the content protected by password.

Log in to the admin panel of your WordPress website and go to Add-ons> Add new.

Next, look for the Passer add-on. Once it appears in the search results, click the Install Now button to install it on your website.

Once the plugin has finished installing, click on the Activate button. Now, open the publication that contains the content you want to protect with a password. Select the part of the content that you want to protect with a password and click on the Short Code option in the Content Protector that is added to the text editor.

You should see a pop-up window that asks you to enter a password. Enter the password you would like to use to restrict access to your content and click the INSERT SHORTCODE INSERT SHORTCODE button to continue.

Once you have finished, be sure to click on the Update (or Publish) button to save the changes. This is how your content will be displayed to your readers in the front-end.

And after entering the correct password, your readers will be able to read the restricted content.

# 3: TO PROTECT THE PASSWORD FROM A POST CATEGORY

If you want to protect more than just one page or part of a publication, you can use the Access category password add-on to restrict users' access to a specific category of posts. And to access the entire category of publications, your readers will be asked to enter the password.

Start by logging into the admin panel of your WordPress website. Go to Add-ons> Add new and find the Access category password snap-in. Once it appears in the search results, click the Install Now button to install it on your website.

Once the plugin has finished installing, click on the Activate button.

Next, hover over Settings in the sidebar menu and click on the Access category password option in the sub-menu.

You should be redirected to the Access category password settings page. Enter the password you want and select the categories of publications that you would like to protect with a password using the affected categories option.

Optionally, you can use the option Grant the user to select the user roles that do not need to enter the password to see the protected categories of publications whenever they have logged in.

By default, only the administrator is granted access to password protected content.

That's all about it. Once you save the changes, the category of publications that you selected must be password protected.

# 4: TO PROTECT THE PASSWORD FROM ALL YOUR SITE

If you need to password protect your entire WordPress site, you can do so by using the Password Protected plugin for WordPress.

Log in to the control panel of your WordPress website, navigate to Add-ons> Add New and search for the Password Protected add-on. Once it appears in the search results, click the Install Now button to install it on your website.

Once the plugin has finished installing, click on the Activate button.

Once done, go to Settings and click on Password Protected. You will be redirected to the Protected Password Settings page:

This page gives you a series of options to control who can access the content of your WordPress website.

To password protect your entire website, simply check the Enable check box against the Password protection status option.

You can also mark the relevant options in the Protected Permissions option to allow selected visitors to access your website without having to enter a password.

And the configuration options also allow you to set a password for your website using the new password option.

If you want to allow specific users to access your website without password restriction, simply enter their IP addresses in the text box in the Allow IP addresses text box to include them in the whitelist.