Hiding a Page | Password Protecting a Page
How do I make a page hidden? Whats the different between hidden from menu and hidden from everyone? How hidden are the pages?
Purpose, to either hide a page from the menu of you live website, or site you are building if not live yet, or require a password for users to be able to access the page.
Hiding a newly created page:
From the drop down Additional Options after selecting your page, pick the option Hidden but Searchable.
This means that the page is not visible in any menu, nor site map, but that the content can still be accessed if you share the hidden URL with anyone.
You can also select the drop down below for Password Protected Level and select the level of authorisation you want them to have, which will require a password to access that page.
If you want the page hidden and password required to view, then you should select both options.
Hiding an existing page:
To hide an existing page, select the More Options cog next to that page under Web Pages, or EDIT the page and click the Options Tab
.
Select "hidden but searchable" from under Button/Page Link Visible.
Hidden but searchable means that their is no button in the main menu. However, the page is still accessible if you link to it from within your content.
Pages that are hidden from menu, but password protected, will be accessible on a members personal welcome page (if authorisation matches), by anyone who logs in.
However, hidden from everyone means that the page will not be displayed there either. Neither option stops google remembering a page that was once visible.
To stop google accessing a page that was once visible, you need to password protect it.
Adding Password Access
To add password protection, click the Password Protection drop down and select the type of protection you require.
Linking to a hidden page
You can use the link wizard to link to a hidden page. Highlight the text you want to use as the link, select the link icon in the tool bar...
From the popup that appears enter the link in the Link To box or click on the red link icon to then choose a page within the site to link to.
Then select the page you want to link to.
Once you do this, the page won't be hidden from Google once Google spiders your website. If you want to hide a web page permanently from search engines, then you should never link to it.
Giving Users Access to Password Protected Pages
To give a user access to a password protected page, then you will need to create the member in the "view members" area,
From the pop out window over 'Members' select "Add new members/customer"
If the user already exists, then you need to select them and increase their security level to "Authorised User". You can choose other access levels as appropriate. They must be higher than the security level set for the page. You can increase the password protection level for any page under page options tab, top right when editing page.
Notes on Definitions
- Hidden from menu - means that a page does not have a menu button, but maybe linked from the content of any page. It also means that if the page is password protected as well, then it will be visible on the member welcome page.
- Hidden from everyone - means that the page will not be visible on member welcome page, nor in the menu. But, you can still link to it from any content page.
- Password protected means you have set either a security group or security level for the page. These pages will be included in menus if not hidden. If hidden from menu, then it may appear in member welcome page. If you have set a security group, and hidden the page, then you need to ensure the security level is also set, otherwise it will not appear on member welcome page.