If you need to redirect restricted visitors to a specific page or prevent them from having access to all or certain portions of your site, there is a way to limit access to your WordPress site to only visitors who are logged in or to specific IP addresses. While we do not often recommend the use of plugins,the Restricted Site Access plugin can be very helpful in limiting access to your WordPress site.
We recommend making a backup of your WordPress from within the WordPress Dashboard before adding or activating a new plugin. For instructions on how to backup WordPress, please refer to the following article from WordPress:Â WordPress Backups.
Install Restricted Site Access Plugin
To install the Restricted Access Plugin on your WordPress site:
- Login to WordPress Dashboard via https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin.php or https://yourdomain.com/wp-login.php (replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name).
- From the left navigation menu, click Plugins > Add New.
- Search "Restricted Site Access" and click Search Plugins.
- Click Install Now > Ok.
- Click Activate Plugin.
Plugin Configuration
- Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins.
- Navigate to the Restricted Site Access plugin and click Settings.
- In the Site Visibility section, click Restrict site access to visitors who are logged in or allowed by IP address.
- In the Handle Restricted Visitors section, click on the action of your choice.
- In the Unrestricted IP Addresses section, add any IP addresses that are allowed to have unrestricted access to your WordPress site. This should include your developers and/or website designers.
- Click Add My Current IP Address. This will ensure that you to have unrestricted access to your site.
- Click Save Changes.
