There are many tutorials out there that shows you how to password protect your website content. Many of those utilize complex membership plugins that require user registration. But what if you just want to password protect your site without user registration? Let’s say you have a demo site for client work. You may only want that specific client to see your site. In this article, we will show you a very simple way to quickly password protect your WordPress site with a single password.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the Password Protected plugin. Upon activation, you will see new settings under your Settings » Privacy page. If you are using version 3.5, then the settings will be under your Setting » Reading page.
Enable the Password Protect status. You have the option to allow feeds, but in most cases you probably don’t want to. So we will leave that as is. Add the password there, and you are done.
Note: If you are using this for clients, then you should probably reset that password after each client.
Now whenever someone tries to reach your WordPress site, they will see a password screen like this:
You can even change the login logo and add your custom one using Mark’s Login Logo plugin.
You can also use this technique to create a private blog that you may only want to give access to your family members or friends without requiring each of them to register. If you just want to password protect a specific post, here is a tutorial on how to password protect a specific post in WordPress.
Excuse my ignorance but I just wanted to clarify….
Allowing password access to a group of people (say students in a class for a given time period e.g. 3 months) can be done and then the password changed when the new term begins – to use for an entirely different set of students.
However, if I am the owner of a wordpress website, I control content/settings etc. i.e. I remain the owner of the site. No such user (allowed in via password access) can ‘hijack’ my site so as to speak.
Yes that is correct. You own the site entirely. The students can only view the site. They cannot change anything.
Hi,
What if I want to protect multiple pages (menu/sub menus/sub-sub menus) from the clients until I give them the password? Can I still use this plugin?
Please suggest a way to accomplish my goal if you know a way.
Thanks!
This would work for all pages not just the homepage. So yes, you can use this plugin.
I’ve been using this plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/basic-authentication/
It pretty much does the same, but you can choose between a “predefined” password, or a WordPress login to secure your WordPress installation
Very interesting, we are looking at using this on our website…
Won’t hackers be able to find another way around this?
This is NOT for hackers. The intended purpose of this plugin is for private blogs. For example, you adopted a kid, and you only want their biological family to see the kid’s pictures. Chances are hackers are not targeting your site because you don’t make any $$$. Another use case would be that you have a client demo area. i.e clients.yoursite.com. You can password protect the site, and change the password for every new client (granted that you are not working with numerous at the same time). Hope that clear things up.
Love it
thanks to all the WPBeginner team for taking the time to share all this useful information with the world. 