How to Password Protect Your WordPress Webpage?

How do you ensure that only selected or trusted users can access your WordPress or WooCommerce webpage? Simple, using password protection. Confused about how to password protect your WordPress webpage without creating a user account? You can now protect your entire WordPress website or a webpage, an individual post or blog, or any specific content.

If you are wondering, in WordPress, how can you password protect your site from unauthorized users with a few easy steps, then we are here to guide you.

How Does Password Protect WordPress Website Work?

Password protection for your WordPress website depends on the type of protection that you require or the actions that users perform on your site.  Be it a WordPress or WooCommerce website, you can choose to password-protect:

• The entire website
• Individual webpages or posts
• WordPress categories

Keep reading to know how to provide password protection to each of these parts. But first, let us understand why you need to password protect your WordPress site.

Why Do You Need to Password Protect Your WordPress Website?

Typically, WordPress business owners want to password-protect their websites for a variety of reasons including:

• To keep any live updates to the website private and non-accessible to most users.
• When they are performing any site maintenance work.
• When websites are used only for internal purposes and are not to be displayed for public use.

Now that you realize the importance of password protection, in the following section, let us see how you can perform this task.

How to Password Protect a WordPress Site?

You can password protect your whole WordPress website primarily using the following two methods:

• Password protection plug-in
• HTTP authentication

Among these two methods, the plug-in method is easier and more user-friendly and can be performed by any WordPress user. On the other hand, HTTP authentication is performed at the server level and is a more effective mode of activating password protection. 

Let us Discuss Each of These Two Methods:

• Using the Plug-in

  You can install and execute the “Password Protected” plug-in to protect your entire WordPress site and only allow selected users to view it. Once installed and configured, you need to share your configured password with the selected users. Once the plug-in is activated, the selected users are presented with a login page when they try to access your website. Here, they need to enter the provided password before viewing the website.

  

  

• Using HTTP Authentication

  With HTTP authentication, you can easily add a layer of password protection for users trying to access it. This is a good option for staging websites or sites under development. To apply HTTP authentication, you can use the password protection tool (or htpasswd) available with your WordPress hosting account.

Next, Let us Discuss How to Password Protect Each of the Following:

1. Single WordPress post
2. An entire WordPress category
3. Entire WordPress website

• Password Protect a Single WordPress Post

  You can choose to password protect your WordPress blog, post, or any WooCommerce product pages using a built-in functionality provided by the WordPress tool. Here is how to do it:

  1. Using any WordPress editor, open the post or page that you want to password-protect.
  2. Under the “Publish” section, edit the “Visibility” component.
  3. Choose the “Password protected” option and then enter the password.
  4. Click OK to apply the changes.

   
  This process is identical to any blog, post, or WooCommerce page. Once the password is configured, users need to enter the correct password when trying to access the post or webpage.

  

• Password Protect an Entire WordPress Category

  If you do not want to configure passwords for an individual piece of the website content, an alternative method is to password protect an entire category. This method enables to configure passwords for multiple components and makes it easier for visitors to unlock the content within the category.

  You can easily set up this password protection by using a third-party WordPress plug-in like “Access Category Password” or “Password Protected Categories.” For instance, here is how to configure the “Password Protected Categories” plug-in:

  1. Install and activate the plug-in.
  2. Navigate to Posts > Categories and select the category for which you need a password.
  3. Go to the “Visibility” section and choose the “Password protected” option.
  4. Enter the password.

   

• Password Protect Your Entire WordPress Site

  The third option is to password protect your entire WordPress website by using the “Password Protected” WordPress plug-in. To use this plug-in, here are the steps you need to execute:

  1. Install and activate the plug-in.
  2. Navigate to the plug-in’s settings and then click “Password Protected.”
  3. First, enable the “Password Protected Status” checkbox and then configure the following fields:

   
  Protected Permissions to select the users who do not need to enter the password to access the WordPress website.

  New Password to specify the password you want for your WordPress site.

  Allow IP addresses to enter all the user IP addresses that don’t need to enter the password when accessing the website.

  1. Once you have completed the changes, save the changes to apply the configured password for your entire WordPress site.

Conclusion

Password protection is the best mode of restricting user access to the entire WordPress or WooCommerce website or its various components. 

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Depending on your website requirement, you can choose which parts of the website need protection and accordingly configure the protection. As mentioned in this blog, WordPress has an easy in-built password functionality to restrict access to selected WordPress pages or posts. For other parts, you can choose a third-party plug-in that is best suited for the job.

With its expertise in WordPress plug-in development, Flipper Code has enabled its customers to gain the most business leverage from their investment in the WordPress tool. For your benefit, you can hire our team of highly skilled WordPress plug-in developers.

If you are looking to implement any particular WordPress project, then we can help you. Drop us a message with your query and we will get back to you.