How to Make Your WordPress Site Private

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If you are building an intranet-style WordPress site or just want to have a private blog, the Members Only plugin is a great and easy solution that lets you do just that.
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If you are building an intranet-style WordPress site or just want to have a private blog, the following plugins are a simple and easy solution that let you do just that.

Private Only

WordPress › Support » Private Only

Do you have a private blog that you only want your friends and family to see and read it?

This plugin will redirect all users who aren’t logged in to the login form where they are shown a user-friendly message.

Get Private Only

Password Protected

A very simple way to quickly password protect your WordPress site with a single password. Integrates seamlessly into your WordPress privacy settings.

Features include:

  • Password protect your WordPress site with a single password.
  • Integrates seamlessly into your WordPress privacy settings.
  • Works with Mark Jaquith’s Login Logo plugin.

Get Password Protected

Absolute Privacy

Absolute Privacy turns your WordPress blog into a fully private site where you control who has access. It’s perfect for family blogs, private communities, and personal websites. You canlockdown the entire site or create a members only area, moderate new registrations, force users to enter first/last name and choose their password during sign up, and more!

Get Absolute Privacy

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Jean Galea

Jean Galea is an investor, entrepreneur, and blogger. He is the founder of WP Mayor, the plugins WP RSS Aggregator and Spotlight, as well as the Mastermind.fm podcast. His personal blog can be found at jeangalea.com.

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10 Responses

  1. Thanks for this useful post! I’ve bookmarked for future reference. Another site that I also recommend that you haven’t included in your post is . I love it because it has more than 50+ Tutorial Best.

  2. hello sorry i have a blog like social community this is visible tu everyone i whant do it a private blog what i have to do please without change nothing in my home only hide the menù and some elements on sidebar please? It’s possible please?

  3. Hi. I recently wanted to take up blogging again and logged into my old wordpress account. The site has totally changed, but I managed to somehow find my way to the page where I needed to create a new blog (or so I thought). I then proceeded to create a new website (website name given above). Unfortunately, when I went back to the Dashboard settings, I found that the new blog I created was actually a website, and not only that, it was private. Even to myself?! I don’t remember setting any privacy settings. And I cannot find where I can even access it to un-privatise it. I do not want this website address as a website, but as a blog. Please point me in the write direction.

  4. Here’s a tip. To find the right registration plugin for my needs I was searching by keywords like ‘register’, ‘privacy’ etc. Try searching by ‘login’ instead. This found a load more plugins including “SimpleModal Login” which is a great step in the right direction. I’m still going to need something like Absolute Privacy to make the site completely private and something to add Admin approval of new registrations. We’d also be well advised to use a captcha of some sort to avoid spam registrations. Many small improvements, when combined, make a big difference (aggregation of marginal gains).

  5. good job on the blog post. and nice suggestions for pluggins. I might use this for a forum type site maybe. I dunno. We’ll have to see.

  6. Thanks for this info! I might want to lock down one of my personal sites later on down the line so it’s good to have this list handy.

  7. Hi there, thanks for your post! I’m interested in using the s2member you mention above for an WP intranet setup that I want to create. Do you have any idea about running Google Analytics or any alternative for a private site?

  8. Hi!

    Your best option is s2member which is being actively developed still. I use it and it’s very powerful.

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