privacy didn’t work
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Hi,
I set my blog to PRIVATE but when I added a new blog post I didn’t change the default setting from PUBLIC. I didn’t to this because the whole blog was set to PRIVATE out of the 3 options of PUBLIC, PRIVATE or HIDDEN.
I then found to my dismay that posts were visible even though the entire blog was set to PRIVATE. I was of the understanding that if you choose privacy then people have to request access individually, but nobody did this, it was just open to everyone to read, like it was some sort of glitch.Can I just check with you my understanding is correct that to set the blog to PRIVATE means no posts can be read by anyone at all, ever, unless you specifically allow each individual to do this?
I’m wondering how I can safeguard this from happening again and appreciate your help with this.
WP.com: Yes
Correct account: YesThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to moderators and staff)
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Hi there, yes, you are correct. If you publish a Public post on a site whose Privacy setting is Private, only you and the people you invite to view your site will be able to read it. https://wordpress.com/support/settings/privacy-settings/
Reading what you’ve written, I am not certain why what you described happened, so I’ve also flagged your thread for Staff input. Thanks for your patience while they get back to you.
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I then found to my dismay that posts were visible even though the entire blog was set to PRIVATE. I was of the understanding that if you choose privacy then people have to request access individually, but nobody did this, it was just open to everyone to read, like it was some sort of glitch.
Is this for the site
rejuvenate08.wordpress.com? If so, there are two different sets of privacy settings for your site: Site-wide and per Post/Page.On your particular site, it is not private – it is set to
nogooglewhich discourages search engines from crawling your site, but it does not make your site private. Previously you had the site set to be Public.You do, however, have many posts that are set to either be password-protected or private:
Password Protected: The post will be protected with your chosen password. Followers will still receive an email notification about this new post, but only those with the password can view it.
Private Posts: The post will be visible only to blog Editors and Administrators. Private posts are not visible in the Reader, feeds, or search. It is also not sent via email to your followers.
If you want the entire site to be private and only accessible to people you give access to, you need to set your SITE to be private by following the steps here:
https://wordpress.com/support/settings/privacy-settings/#privacy-options
Your posts and pages that currently have password or privacy protection would not change.
I hope that clarifies things!
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Hi,
I appreciate you clarifying this and I like it that you can see I was previously set to public before changing it to nogoogle. Are you able to see that I was private before it was public?
I had a situation where I looked in earlier in June (the 9th) and saw it was set to private. But I was told by someone that it was accessible and readable, which was disturbing for me because I had it set to private for as long as I can remember.
Are you able to look back and see how long it was private for?
Kind regards
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Hi there,
From what we can see the site was
- changed from Public to Private 3 years ago (7/18/2019)
- changed from Private to Public in May (6/14/2022)
- changed from Public to Public but blocking search engines (nogoogle) a few days later (6/25/2022)
So it seems that you may have set the site to be public about a month and a half ago according to our activity logs
If you wish to set your site to private so no one from the public can visit it you can do so here under your privacy settings here: https://wordpress.com/settings/general/
Hope that helps. Please let us know if you have any more questions.
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Hi Jerry,
Thank you for this.
Couple of questions if I may:
1. You mention the blog was made public on 6/14/22, but you called this May and I can’t see a date in May written anywhere, do you mean June? And if that is the case, we are still in June so does that mean it was changed to public in June (the 14th?) and not about a month and a half ago?Also, 2, during the period of being set to private in 2019 and being set to public in June 2022, that the blog was read by another party. This is the query I first raised. You will see from the stats it was viewed and yet it should have been set to private during this time. DO you know how that could have happened?
Finally, 3, may I ask you to check what the privacy settings were when I opened the blog in 2010? I am pretty certain it was private and I wonder if you can see when it was changed to public. I remember it was fleetingly when I was juggling my other blogs at the same time, and had not been a public blog ever since 2010. which is also reflected in the stats record.
Many thanks for your help with this
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Another question, if I may, sorry, this is question 4!
I checked my stats and the entire history of the blog there is only ever registered one viewer from the UK (my location). I remember asking once about how there is a single viewer logged and I was told it was ME, and it logged me because I wasn’t actually signed into the web browser, only the app itself, which would make it register me as the only viewer each time.
The first time stats ever show more than one person viewing the blog is when I make it public on 14 June 2022, can you confirm this?
Also I note the only comments ever made are my own, and there is not, nor ever has been, a single follower of this journal.
Many thanks
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Hi there,
1. You mention the blog was made public on 6/14/22, but you called this May and I can’t see a date in May written anywhere, do you mean June? And if that is the case, we are still in June so does that mean it was changed to public in June (the 14th?) and not about a month and a half ago?
I think Jerry just mistyped. That change was made on 14 June, as indicated above.
Also, 2, during the period of being set to private in 2019 and being set to public in June 2022, that the blog was read by another party. This is the query I first raised. You will see from the stats it was viewed and yet it should have been set to private during this time. DO you know how that could have happened?
If it’s because you’re seeing stats for that period, that’s because on a private site, the site owner’s own views of the site get recorded in stats. So every view in your site stats between July 2019 and 14 June 2022 were from your own visits.
Finally, 3, may I ask you to check what the privacy settings were when I opened the blog in 2010? I am pretty certain it was private and I wonder if you can see when it was changed to public. I remember it was fleetingly when I was juggling my other blogs at the same time, and had not been a public blog ever since 2010. which is also reflected in the stats record.
rejuvenate08.wordpress.com was created in March 2012. At that point all new WordPress.com sites were created as public by default, but our logs show you set it to private shortly thereafter.
Then in 2019 you set it to public, and back to private a short time later.
The first time stats ever show more than one person viewing the blog is when I make it public on 14 June 2022, can you confirm this?
When someone views your site, we only log the browser session (visit) and views of individual pages during that session. We have no way of telling whether two visits were from the same individual, or from different people, as we don’t log the kind of information that would allow us to determine that.
But what I can confirm is that on a private site, the site owner’s views are logged in stats, so any stats recorded while the site was private, were from your own views.
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