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Guidance notes

Here are some written instructions on how to hide pages from your users. 

You can expand the screenshots by clicking on them.  

These notes assume you are already logged into the CMS.

There a number of different ways of hiding a page from your users, depending on the outcome you want to achieve. 

  1. Hide a page from the website

In this scenario, you want to hide a page from your users completely, that means they can not find it either in the navigation, via site-wide search or search engines.  However, you may still visit it via direct link (e.g. using the url).  Therefore you only want to follow this method if you haven't made the url available before. 

It can also be used to create a page which can be shared directly, e.g. a "hidden page" that only people who have the link can access.  If you want to hide a page completely please use step 3.

  • Go to Dashboard > Sitemap 

sitemap.png

  • Identify the page you want to hide 
  • Left-click on the page and select ‘Attributes’ (you can also do this via the Page Composer) 
  • In the popup of page attributes, you need to select up to five attributes from the left-hand side, to make them available for us on the page. This doesn’t activate them until we then tick them on the right. These attributes are:

a) Exclude From sitemap.xml (Removes the page from the ‘sitemap’ generated for search engines, meaning that they can't easily find it)
b) Exclude From Nav (Removes the page from the desktop and mobile navigation)
c) Exclude From Page List (Removes the pages from any Page List blocks, often used for landing page grids) 
d) Exclude From Search Index (Removes the page from the internal sitewide search and also entirely blocks search engines from listing it) 
e) Exclude Subpages from Navigation (When applied to a parent page, hides will subpages from the desktop and mobile navigation without having to apply attributes to them individually) 

Exclude attributes 2022-10-31 101052.png

  • To enable any one of these individually, multiple, or all of them on any page, 'tick' the option on the right-hand side

exclude options 022-10-31 101124.png

  • Click 'Save'
  • If you have done this via the Page Composer, Publish the page (or click 'Approve changes' once on the page).  If you have done this from the sitemap the changes are applied instantly

  1. Hide a page from the mega-navigation only (drop down menu)

In this scenario, you still want users to able to find the page using the site-wide search, and by navigating through sections (e.g. they can see it in a page list on the parent page, or sections which show related pages).  However, you may want to hide it from the mega-navigation (main drop down menu) so that the menu isn't too crowded.

  • To achieve, follow the steps in section 1.  but only tick the b) Exclude from Nav and e) if the page has sub-pages
  • Click 'Save'
  • If you have done this via the Page Composer, Publish the page (or click 'Approve changes' once on the page).  If you have done this from the sitemap the changes are applied instantly

  1. Hide a page from all users, even using a direct link

In this scenario, only administrators who are logged in will be able to access the page.  Instead of using the page's Attributes it uses 'Permissions' instead. 

  • Go to : Dashboard / Sitemap

  • The page you wish to apply permissions to (for a whole section, find the parent page)

  • Left click and choose 'Permissions' from the context menu

permissions.png

  • The default setting for permissions is to inherit the rules from the page above

  • To override the permissions for a page, go to 'Assign permissions' option list

  • Select the 'Manually'​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

  • You can now edit the 'Current Permission Set' by clicking on the blue text.  Go to:

    • 'View'

View permissions

  • Click the Trash icon next to 'Guest'

Delete Guest

  • Click 'Save'

  • Now only logged in users will be able to view this page