If you’re offering private sales for specific customers or providing premium content, it’s vital to protect your website from unauthorized users.
You can secure your WordPress content through a variety of means, ranging from using a membership plugin to disabling copy and paste or even blocking IP addresses. There are 2 other effective ways to restrict access to your WordPress pages and posts: setting a password or creating a private link.
In this article, we’ll compare 2 plugins Password Protect WordPress Pro (PPWP pro) and Protect WordPress Pages & Posts (PPP) so that you can have better insight into how each plugin can help secure your content.
2 Ways to Protect WordPress Content
Both PPWP Pro and PPP help you shield any posts, pages, and custom post types on your WordPress site from unwanted users.
You’re owning a WooCommerce store? These plugins are great assistants when it comes to protecting digital products.
These plugins automatically block search engines like Google from indexing your private content too. In other words, your pages and posts won’t appear on any search results page once protected.
It’s possible for you to whitelist users to access your secure content without any restrictions. They don’t have to enter passwords or use private links to view the protected content.
Key Differences between PPWP Pro and PPP
While both plugins help protect WordPress content, each offers some unique features. The following table explains briefly how well each plugin works.
| PPWP | PPP | |
| Method to protect content | Set passwords | Protect pages’ URLs |
| Features | Generate unlimited passwords | Generate unlimited links |
| Create random/customized passwords | Create random/customized links | |
| Expire passwords | Expire links | |
| Protect the entire site
Protect partial content |
N/A | |
| Protect multiple pages and posts at the same time | Protect individual pages and posts |
How PPWP Pro and PPP work
PPWP Pro allows you to lock a page or post with a password. Users will see a password form when visiting the protected page. Only those with the correct password are able to unlock the content.
PPP keeps prying eyes off your content via private links. Users will be redirected to your 404 error page when attempting to access the page’s original URL. They must use private links generated by PPP to see your protected content. Example of a page URL and its private link:
Original page URL: www.preventdirectaccess.com/my-thank-you-page
Private link: www.preventdirectaccess.com/privateup/58575f26ae274
Password and Private link management
PPWP Pro makes it easy for you to set as many passwords for a post as you’d like to. You can create random passwords automatically or customize your own passwords so that they’s more memorable to users.
Here are examples of random and customized passwords:
Random password: 8575f26ae274
Custom password: this-is-my-password
Are you afraid that users keep sharing their passwords with others? Set expiration time and usage limits to auto-expire your passwords after a given time or a number of clicks. Users won’t be able to use these passwords to access your content anymore.
Similarly, you can create multiple private links for a post or page and send each user a different link. Your private links will automatically become invalid once you set their access expiry and access limits. The private links are customizable too, making themselves more meaningful and legitimate to your users:
Random access link: www.preventdirectaccess.com/privateup/58575f26ae274
Custom access link: www.preventdirectaccess.com/private/my-thank-you-page
Setting as well as managing passwords and private links have never been easier thanks to management popups. You can create new passwords or links, set expiration time and usage limits within seconds. PPWP Pro enables you to assign and edit passwords in the post edit screen as well. However, there is no option to create private links while editing a post or page.
Private content access permissions
When users enter the right password and unlock the content once, PPPW Pro saves their cookies and authorizes them to see the protected content without entering passwords again.
You can even set passwords to certain user roles. This means, only those user roles are able to use passwords and unlock your private content.
Access links generated by PPWP allow you to bypass password protected content. Each access link actually corresponds with a password. Similar to PPP private links, these links grant users temporary access to the private content without entering passwords.
Protecting the entire site and sections of a page/post
PPWP Pro comes in handy to protect the entire WordPress site. Simply enable the Password Protect Entire Site feature and set passwords to protect your website. A site can be protected with multiple passwords.
Don’t want to shield the whole page content but certain paragraphs? PPWP Pro would be your ideal solution. You can lock specific sections of a page or post with a simple shortcode.
PPP doesn’t support the entire site or partial content protection. You must secure pages and posts individually in your Pages, Posts, or custom post type sections in your WordPress sidebar.
Securing multiple pages and posts at once
You’re allowed to password protect categories and sub-pages. Once a category or a page is locked, all posts and subpages under them will automatically become private too.
You can group many WordPress pages and posts together and protect all these pages at the same time. Whenever a user unlocks a post in this group, other pages and posts will automatically become accessible to that user.
Sharing passwords and private links with users
You should integrate PPWP Pro with ActiveCampaign to easily send passwords to users. Once a new subscriber subscribes to your ActiveCampaign email list, our plugin will auto-generate a unique password for them to access your protected content. This password will be sent to their mailbox along with the link to the page.
It takes time to create private links and send them to users manually. That’s why PPP provides you with a shortcode to generate private links automatically. When visitors submit a form, for example, they will receive a private link via email or directly on your thank-you page.
Which Plugin to Protect Your WordPress Content?
Both PPWP Pro and PPP prove effective to protect your WordPress content from unauthorized users and search engines.
While PPWP Pro helps lock your content with a password, PPP secures your WordPress pages and posts via private links. You can create multiple passwords and private links for a post. Expiring passwords and private links after time duration and usages is supported too.
In case you want to protect your entire WordPress site or sections of a post, install PPWP pro. If you intend to secure pages and posts individually, get PPP plugin!
Both PPWP Pro and PPP don’t support media file protection. Your images or videos in the protected pages and posts will still be accessible when users have the file URLs. Integrate these plugins with Prevent Direct Access Gold plugin to extend the file protection capabilities.
