Converting Your Blog to ‘Private’
This simple, yet useful tip can help you create a blog that is completely private and cut-off from the rest of the world — meaning that you will have to give out passwords or administrative rights to your blog for others to view it. In the end, you may reap more benefits by creating a separate, solely private blog, which expresses your thoughts with only those that you want to view them.
The reasons for doing this aren’t limited to simply personal blogs, which can be shared with friends and family, but also for corporate and organization blogs, in that you don’t want the public to view or comment on these posts, which are meant to be private.
In WordPress, it is quite easy to set the whole blog to private. To do this, go into the main Settings area, then select “Privacy.” Within this area, you’ll find the button to “block search engines but allow normal visitors.” This is your first step to “removing” your blog from regular visitors who may stumble upon your blog.
Another approach to creating a similar block on your blog is by “keeping posts private”, in which you have to manually mark posts as private, found in the WordPress sidebar, below the Publish Status drop-down menu. In order for visitors to read your posts, they’ll either need to sign-in or use a password to access your content.
Blogger also has a few methods to deter regular visitors from visiting your site. First, sign into Blogger, then enter the “Basic” settings area. A few options down, you’ll find a drop-down list to disable/enable listing your blog in search engines or their listing system. These two options will prevent people from finding your blog through these methods if set to ‘no.’
Secondly, you should also use the “Permissions” to add people who can contribute and view your blog. Much like other free platforms, this is more limited than hosting with your own system, including WordPress, as you can only invite up to 100 members, compared to “unlimited” with others. You are able to set this to people you choose or your blog authors only.
Conclusion
This list was a short overview of the methods to “privatize” your blog to your visitors. While this defeats some of the main purposes of starting a blog and the benefits you gain while blogging, it can help you separate your personal blog from one you use for other purposes, such as professional work. Family members and friends will be able to read this blog, while not allowing outside commentators or visitors to access your blog (or leave comments).
