August 23, 2004
Creating a Private Blog
What if you want to create a blog that wasn’t available to the general public?
I’ve been poking around in MovableType and WordPress, but haven’t yet discovered how to make your blog private on those platforms — I’d imagine you could password protect a directory by modifying the .htaccess files, but I’d like to see ability to make a blog private incorporated into the blog tools interface.
This is where TypePad excels. Simply create a new blog, and 1) mark it as private (which only stops them from listing your blog on the ‘Recently updated blogs’ lists ) and make sure the boxes for notifying third party services when you update your blog are unchecked AND then 2) go into the Control Panel and click the link that says ‘Password Protect a Site’ and then enter the shared username and password that you will provide to only those you want to access your blog — this allows you to limit access to your blog, or part of your blog, so that only you or those you choose can read your posts.
In Blogger, go to Settings | Basic, and make sure to pick ‘No’ from the dropdown box entitled ‘Add your Blog to our listings’. Note that A Public blog appears in your Blogger Profile. If you select ‘No’ they will not show your blog anywhere on Blogger.com, but it will still be available on the Internet. As such, if you host your Blogger blog on their free hosting site, BlogSpot, from what I can tell you will not be able to keep your blog private or prevent it from being spidered and indexed by the search engines. If you’re very careful not to link to it from any external site, theres a chance it will never be found..but you’ve no guarantee of preventing unwanted eyes from reading your private blog. If you host your blog on your own ISP or web hosting provider and FTP your blogger pages to them, it’s conceivable that you could password protect the directory, again by modifying the .htaccess file.
Again, not having yet installed b2evolution or blosxom, I can’t comment on those platforms. However, I checked out blosxom’s website and it appears that they have several Blosxom plugins that you can use to password protect your site.
So, at this point, it would appear that TypePad is the only blogging software I have tested that allows you to make all or part of a blog private from within the TypePad control panel.
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Comments
September 20, 2004
Pam G. said:
Hi, me again. I can confirm: b2evolution does include a convenient mechanism (admin area) allowing “private” posts, hidden unless the person checking in has been assigned the corresponding level to access private posts. BTW, as a follow up to my earlier note to you, I ran into a snafu with WordPress (well documented on their boards, re login woes). Although I eventually resolved it, the whole thing irritatated me enough to push me toward b2evo. Now that I’m really getting into that app, I love it. And thankfully, the learning curve is tolerable.
October 18, 2004
gianfranco ramoser said:
“again by modifying the .htaccess file.”
could you please remember how to use .htacces files ?
gianfranco ramoser
May 5, 2005
Tina said:
I am looking to make my site unaccessable to the public and accessable to my parents of my childcare. What is the best way to go about this? Do I have to have a server, such as Google to use such a product? I have Comcast.net. I was told that they don’t have access to any such thing. I am hoping that I am speaking the correct computer web language to them when I ask for help.
PLEASE HELP ME. I HAVE HAD SUCH A HARD TIME UNDERSTANDING HOW AND WHERE TO GET INFO ON THIS SUBJECT. Your site is the first site where I feel like this may be what I am looking for. I have til the end of June to get this done!
Thank you sincerely,
Tina Meyers
Emily from How to Blog said:
Hi Tina -
No worries, you found the right site!
First of all, to clarify a few things, comcast.net is your Internet Service Provider (ISP) - they just give you access to the entire internet and what you choose to do on the internet is endless. To create a website you need either a web hosting company (where you can have your own server or share a server with others) or a ‘hosted solution’ (where you can use someone else’s server and it’s generally cheaper and easier).
I would highly recommend using TypePad for your childcare site. It is extremely easy to learn and setup, and you can start creating pages in minutes. You can get a free 90 day trial of the Plus version by entering the coupon code ‘movable’ when you sign up at http://www.typepad.com/
The Basic version is only $4.95 a month, and allows you to have a single site with a single author (you). The Plus version is $8.95 a month, and allows you to have up to 3 sites (weblogs) with you as the sole author. If you want the parents to be able to be authors of posts as well, you’ll need the Pro verison which is $14.95 per month.
To ensure that your site is private, upon logging into your TypePad account, you will need to do the following:
- after the initial signup page, you will be prompted to enter a name for your weblog, to choose a layout structure (you’re provided with 9 to choose from), choose a design style (numerous to choose from), and then here’s the most important part: at the bottom of the page it says ‘Weblog Privacy’, and you want to choose the option for “Password Protected” (and enter a shared username and password that you will provide to the parents so they can access your site).
- Now click on the tab labeled “Weblogs”, and then when it brings up the page with your site listed, click the link that says “Edit Configuration”, then click the link that says “Publicity and Feeds” and scroll down towards the bottom to where it asks “Would you like to offer feeds of your weblog’s posts?” and check the option for “No, do not offer feeds of my posts”.
Now your site will only be accessible to those who you provide the username and password to. To create posts, just click on the Post tab, and it’s pretty much like using a word processor. Yes, it’s really that simple.
I hope this information helps, and let me know if you have any additional questions.
August 5, 2005
Sarah said:
I am currently trying to password protect my blog so that only people who know the username and password can access. my type of blog is blogspot.com. Please reply and tell me how to password protect my blogspot.com.
August 31, 2005
Qiu said:
your site had been feature on Qiu Spot!!
http://qiuspot.blogspot.com/2005/08/internet-private-blogger-prevent-from.html
September 16, 2005
Ron said:
How can I get the history in my search to be removed. not to be remembered. gone.
October 4, 2005
gary said:
What steered me away from TypePad is their TOU says it can put advertisements on your blog. Can I request not to have this as well?
October 6, 2005
Emily from How to Blog said:
@gary
So far as I know, the choice to have advertisements on your TypePad blog is optional, and the ads, if displayed, go towards offsetting the cost of your TypePad account — meaning, you could benefit financially from them. If I remember correctly, the default option is actually to have no ads displayed at all.
January 21, 2006
snipeseye said:
http://pchere.blogspot.com/2005/02/simple-scripts-to-password-protect.html
go to that website and it will have a simple java scipt u can post to stop people from entering your blog..
but people knowing simple html can crack it…
April 28, 2006
opere citato said (trackback):
Private blogging
Some people want there blogs to be private.Now, I don’t understand that completely, since I believe blogging is about having public availability, but heh, that’s me.I read a article about this and have done a "little" bit of research. That…
August 14, 2006
Library clips :: Private blogs :: August :: 2006 said (pingback):
[…] Looks like it’s nothing new anyway. […]
November 28, 2006
Rob Oresteen said:
So I take it one cannot custimize WordPress 2.0 to make it password protected and strip out the RSS as to keep the pinging process to nothing. Is there a way to use WP 2.0 cms for a private blog?