How to Edit WordPress Page Visibility

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August 6, 2020

The WordPress Page Visibility Options

When it comes to publishing posts or pages in WordPress, there are visibility options presented to you to restrict what the public can or cannot see.

We will be going over the three default types of WordPress page visibility options:

Public
Password protected
Private.

Where are the Options?

Within any post-type, whether it be pages, blog posts, properties, etc., a Publish box should be seen immediately as the first box within the upper right-hand corner of the page. Typically, it’s followed by a Categories box, a Tags box, or even a Featured Image box depending on the post-type. The point is the box is “front and center” and ready for user interaction.

To see the WordPress page visibility options offered by WordPress, click on the blue Edit link next to Visibility.

Public

The visibility option is set to Public by default. That means that as soon as the page is published, anyone with the direct URL can access and see the contents of said page.

Password Protected

Password protected behaves as a public page, but with a catch. The page is public and the URL is accessible to anyone who has it, however, the catch is the reader has to input the correct password to view the contents of the page.

That password is set by clicking on the Password protected radio button, followed by inputting a chosen password and clicking on the blue OK to set the password in place. The password is not set in stone and can be updated with a different one.

The reader will be greeted with an input field to type in the correct password in order to access the information on the page.

This option would work well if you wanted someone to review the page or article without necessarily providing any WordPress credentials. They could access the URL, input the password, and provide any constructive feedback.

Private

As the name suggests, Private is the complete opposite of Public. When the visibility option is set to private, the page becomes unavailable to the reader regardless if they have the direct URL.

Once the reader goes to the direct URL, they are greeted with some form of a Page not found message depending on the WordPress theme the site is using. It is sort of like a false/positive. The user believes that they made an error or believes that page truly does not exist, when in fact the page is accessible through the WordPress backend.

The only way to see a private page is to first be logged in to the WordPress backend and then access the page from there.

This option would work well if nobody was within the general vicinity to walk over and read the article on your screen. They could log in to the WordPress backend and read the article on their own device. Very helpful if you have employees working remotely instead of in office.