🔒 Protecting Pages, Posts And Categories

Protection decides who can open a piece of content. You choose the levels, and everybody else sees your protection message, a teaser, or a page of your choice instead.

There are three ways to protect, and they stack: one item at a time in the editor, many items at once with Bulk protect, or everything in a category, tag or topic.

Where to find it:

• One item: the Membership Protection box in the sidebar of the WordPress editor, on every page, post and public custom post type.
• In bulk and by category: AiX Membership, then the Protect Content tab.
• What visitors see: AiX Membership, then the Settings tab, then When someone without access opens protected content.

Protecting one page or post:

1. Open the page or post in the editor.
2. In the sidebar, find Membership Protection.
3. Tick Protect this content.
4. Under Who can see it, tick one or more levels. Type in the filter box to find a level, or use All and None.
5. Optionally fill in Drip: unlock after with a number of days. See Drip Content: Releasing A Course Over Time.
6. Optionally choose a page under No access? Send them to.
7. Click Update.

If you tick Protect this content and no level, the item is open to administrators only.

No access? Send them to:

This choice sends a visitor who cannot open this particular page to a page you pick, for example the sales page for that course. Leave it on The site-wide no-access page to use the Settings tab. Members who have access never see it.

A page is never sent to itself, to a draft, or to another page the visitor cannot open, so nobody ends up going round in a loop.

Protecting many items at once:

On the Protect Content tab, the Bulk protect section applies one setting to every item of a content type.

1. Choose the Content type, for example Pages or Posts.
2. Under Give access to, tick the levels.
3. Choose the Action: Protect everything matching, or REMOVE protection from everything matching.
4. Optionally enter Drip, in days after joining.
5. Click Apply in bulk and confirm.

Bulk protect includes drafts, and it replaces any per-item settings made in the editor for those items. The section also has an Only this category (posts only, optional) list. In version 1.4.25 that list offers only All categories, so to protect the posts in one category, use the category table below instead.

Protecting whole categories, tags and topics:

The Protect whole categories, tags & topics table lists every category, tag and topic on your site, including groupings your theme adds, such as the Topics on ResultsAiX Theme trainings.

1. Find the category, tag or topic.
2. Tick the levels in its Members-only for column.
3. Click Save category, tag & topic protection.

Everything filed under it is now members-only, including items you publish later. Child categories are shown indented under their parent, and locking a parent covers everything under its children too. This stacks with per-item protection, so a post in a protected category that also has its own levels opens for either.

Currently protected content:

This table lists every protected item with its Type, its Levels and its Drip in days, plus an Edit button that opens it in the editor. Fifty items show per page.

The same tab also shows Menu visibility, the rules on your menu items, and Protection shortcodes, a quick reference. See Menus That Change With Who Is Looking and Shortcode Reference.

What visitors without access see:

On the Settings tab, under When someone without access opens protected content, you choose the following.

• Behavior: Show the protection message; Show the excerpt as a teaser, then the message; or Redirect them to a page.
• Redirect URL (for the redirect behavior): the page they are sent to. A sales or join page works best. Members who lack the right level land here too.
• Protection message: the text in the padlock box. Basic HTML is allowed, and a login link is added for logged-out visitors.
• A locked block inside a page: for content wrapped in [raxm_protect], either Show the protection message in its box or Show nothing at all.

How far the protection reaches:

These boxes on the same Settings section control the rest, and all are on by default:

• Hide protected content from archives, search results and post lists for visitors without access.
• Replace protected content in RSS feeds with the protection message.
• Protect content in the WordPress REST API too (recommended), so pages and posts cannot be read by asking WordPress for them directly.
• Administrators always see everything (turn off to preview as a visitor).

Comments on a protected item are hidden and closed for anybody who cannot open it.

Protecting part of a page:

Wrap a section in [raxm_protect level="gold"] and [/raxm_protect] to hide just that part from non-members. [raxm_no_access] does the opposite and shows its content only to visitors without access, which suits a join pitch on a semi-public page. See Shortcode Reference.

A real example:

Yoursite Academy protects in all three ways. Each Photo Basics lesson is protected in the editor for Photo Basics Course, with a drip of 7 days more for each lesson. The Gold Lessons category is ticked for Gold Membership and Pro Coaching, so every new Gold lesson post is members-only the moment it is published, and its Monthly Challenges child category is covered too. Lesson 2 has No access? Send them to set to the About Yoursite Academy page, while every other locked page shows the message This lesson is for Yoursite Academy members. Log in below, or join the free Photo Club to get started.

Checking your work:

Open a protected page in a private browser window, or use the View as button on the Members tab to see the site as one member. Checking while logged in as an administrator shows you everything, which is why the private window matters.

Tips:

• Category protection is the one that saves the most time. Protect the category once and every future post in it is covered.
• A redirect to a sales page turns a locked door into a sale, because the person who just hit it is the most interested visitor on your site.
• If your host runs a full page cache, exclude your protected pages from it, so the cache never serves a member's copy of a page to a visitor.