I'm frequently asked if some pages can be made private. 

Yes.  Yes, they can!

Let’s imagine you have a page called “My Photos” and you want to only share them with your family …

There is one thing you need to do, and then some other things you “could” do, but are totally optional.

• Log into your website and go to the toolkit.
• Pick “Visitor Control Panel”.
• Option 6 is “6. Choose Secure/Public Pages”.  Click “Click Here” to the right of this option.
• Click the little pencil to the right of “My Photos” (or whatever page you want to keep private).
• Click the little check box next to “Restrict this webpage”.
• Press “Submit”.
• Press “Done”.

That’s it!  Now this page is private.

However, what’s “private”? Private to whom? How can you be sure that only your family sees your private page?

This is where it gets a little trickier.  The good news is, you also have control over this!

Currently, with a “Private” page, like the one you have, all that needs to happen is someone needs to register.  As a result, “anyone” can still see your “private” page, but they’re forced to register, before they can see it.  This is ok for sites that want to collect information from their visitors, but it doesn’t really make the page “private”.

So, let’s make sure that only your family can see your page …

• Go back to the Visitor Control Panel in the toolkit.
• Click the first option, “1. Preferences”
• In the first section of the Preferences page, click the option reading, “Locked down. I will approve every new member.”
  • This means that you get to choose who is allowed in and who isn’t.  People you don’t want in will never see your private pages.
• 2. Require email address verification?
  • This is up to you.  If it’s just your family, then chances are, you know their email.  This sends an email to the people asking them to verify they can get emails from your website.  It won’t let them in, until they respond to the email.  This is optional.
• You can upload a picture to put onto the front of the “Private” page, if you want to.
  • Remember, we’re talking about a page called “My Photos”.  I imagine it’s a page of your photos.  Most people will go to the page and see a log in page, rather than your photos.  Using this tool, you can add a “single” photo, if you want to.  It will add it to the log in page.
• You can also offer a welcome message of some kind.  Something like, “Welcome to my website!  This is for my family.  If you are not my family, I’m sorry, there is nothing here for you to see.  If you ARE my family, please register or log in!  Thank you!”.
• You can skip 5 and 6, but feel free to experiment with them, later.
• Click “Save Preferences”.
• Click “Done”.

That’s it!  Now you’ve set it up so that you can control who get’s in!  Let’s experiment with it …

• Log out (sign out) of your website.
• Go to the “My Photos” page.
• Type in the big box, “This is a test.  Let me into this website, please”.  Then click “Email Administrator”.
• Click “Join Group”.
• Enter the log in information for someone like your father.
• Press Submit.
• At this point, you should see a message reading “*** You may not sign in until your account is activated by the website administrator ***”.  This is good!  That means it’s working!
• Now, log back into the website as yourself.
• Go back to the “Visitor Control Panel”.
• Now, the 3rd option should show that you have at least 1 person waiting on activation.  Click “Activate Now”.
• You should, at minimum, see your father’s log in information.  Click “Activate User” on his line.

That’s it!  Now, email your father his log in information.  He can now go see your photos, but no one else can!

It may seem like a lot, but it’s really pretty easy.  Once you do it a few times, it’ll be pretty easy for you.

Good luck with it!