Hiding a members-only article or a private page from the wrong audience is the most common job of a content restriction plugin — and with Restrict for WordPress it takes a single dropdown selection. This guide shows you how to restrict the content of a page or post so that only the users you choose (logged-in users, specific roles, specific capabilities, or the author) can see it, and what everyone else will see instead.
Before you begin
Make sure Restrict is installed and activated on your website — if it isn’t yet, follow the installing and activation guide first. It is also a good idea to set up the messages that restricted visitors will see; you can do that in the plugin’s General settings.
How to restrict a page or post
With Restrict installed on your website, it is quite simple to restrict the whole content of any of your pages or posts. While creating a new page or post, or editing an existing one, you will notice a dropdown menu right below the content area. This dropdown lets you select the criteria a user needs to fulfill in order for the content to appear for them:
- Open the page or post in the WordPress editor (or create a new one).
- Scroll to the dropdown menu below the content area.
- Select the restriction criteria you want to apply.
- Save or update the page or post — the restriction takes effect immediately.
Available restriction criteria
By default, the criteria will be set to Everyone, which of course makes the content available to all users. Here are the rest of the available criteria:
- Logged in users – makes the content available only to logged-in users. This is the go-to option for simple membership sites and private blogs.
- Users with specific role – if you select this option, you will also need to select which particular user role is required to display the content. This is ideal when you have tiered access, for example content reserved for Subscribers, Editors, or a custom membership role.
- Users with specific capability – allows you to set the specific user capability required to display the content. Capabilities give you finer-grained control than roles, since a single capability can be shared across several roles.
- Author – makes the post or page visible only to the author who created it. Useful for drafts-in-progress, personal notes, or per-author private areas on multi-author sites.
Integration-based criteria
Additional options may appear in this dropdown if you have Tickera, WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads installed on your website. These let you restrict content based on purchases, tickets, or downloads — for example, showing a page only to customers who bought a specific product. For details, check out the WooCommerce, Tickera and Easy Digital Downloads integration documentation.
What restricted visitors will see
If a user does not fulfill the required criteria to view the content, you can set a custom message to inform them what is required to access the content on this page or post. A good message turns a dead end into a conversion opportunity — tell visitors how to log in, register, or purchase access. To find out how to set up custom messages, check the General settings documentation.
Tips
- Restrict only part of a page. The dropdown restricts the entire content of the page or post. If you want to restrict just a part of the content — for example, a teaser visible to everyone with the full article behind a login — use shortcodes instead.
- Restrict many posts at once. If you need the same rule on every post of a post type, set a default in the Post Types area instead of editing posts one by one.
- Restrict whole categories. To protect an entire group of posts, you can also restrict access to post categories.
- Hide restricted pages from menus. Pair page restriction with menu item restriction so restricted visitors don’t even see links to content they can’t open.