Frequently Asked Question

Two ways of hiding WordPress page or post content

1 - change the post or page's published status to draft

2 - Make the page or post private

1 - Changing the published status of a post or page in WordPress

To change the published status you can either

a) Use the quick edit function by hovering over the post

b)  Edit the page or posts status in full edit mode

But ... I can see a private post on the site

Private posts are still visible to certain WordPress users / levels. The KB below explains this. The most guaranteed way to make a post invisible is to set its published status to draft. 

What Is a Private Page or Post in WordPress?

As the name implies, a private WordPress page or post is not visible to the public. Depending on the settings, it may only be visible to one or a couple of users, and that’s it. Even if a visitor has the URL for a certain page, he or she won’t be able to see it if it is set to “private.”

A private page/post contains private content  visible only to those with the right permissions. In order to understand permissions, let’s first go through WordPress user roles:

• Administrator. This is the site owner with the ability to access, add, edit, delete and publish posts and pages, add and remove users, install themes and plugins and change settings in the Dashboard.

• Editor. This user can access and modify (add, edit, delete, publish) posts but cannot install plugins or themes.

• Author. This is the user that can only modify and publish their own posts. Posts written by other users are off limits.

• Contributor. Can write and modify their own posts but cannot publish them.

• Subscriber. The only function that is available to this user is logging in to view the site content and managing their profile.

The only user roles that can view, edit and delete private pages are Administrator and Editor. The initial permission for setting private pages/posts can only be granted by the Administrator.

Basically, private pages and posts are inaccessible to everyone except the Administrator and the Editor. For everyone else, the page/post is strictly off-limits, until the visibility setting is changed from “Private” to “Public.”