Memberium’s Content Protection Box allows you to protect your content simply and intuitively.
You can protect your content with a combination of various controls – active membership, tags, the logged-in status of a viewer, and contact IDs. Additionally, you can combine these conditions for more complex protections.
Once you’ve determined that a viewer may not view a page, you can then decide how to handle that restricted page. You can hide the page as if it doesn’t exist, show an excerpt/summary if your theme supports that, or simply redirect the viewer to another page.
This guide should give you a better understanding of the capabilities and use of the Content Protection Box, but as always if you have any questions, feel free to contact support.
Where to Find It
By default, the Content Protection Metabox is located in the right column of the edit page when viewing a page, post or custom post type. We only show the box for post types that show up as URLs. So post types that represent some kind of internal data storage such as badges, posts, etc. won’t automatically be protected since they don’t translate to a viewable page.
You can drag and drop this box to the left column, or move it above and below, to place it wherever you wish.
Restricting Content by Membership Level
For each membership level you create, Memberium will place a checkbox in the first section for that membership. If you want that membership to grant access to the page, then check the box next to the membership. The space in this box is limited, and this is one of the reasons we encourage the use of short but distinct membership names to keep the list readable.
Regardless of how many memberships you create, this first section will always contain a checkbox option called “Any Membership Level”. Checking this is similar to checking all the membership level boxes, but will automatically include new memberships as they are created. Any page requiring a membership level will automatically be restricted to logged-in viewers only.
If more than one membership level is checked, then any checked membership level will be enough to give the member access to the page. This is an “OR” condition, not an “AND”.
Restricting Content by Login Status
Memberium also includes options to separately limit access based on logged-in status. There are two checkboxes “Any Logged In User”, and “Logged Out Only”.
Any Logged In User is a very useful and under-utilized option. It requires only that the user be logged into the site to view the page. This simple content protection is especially valuable for my account pages, membership home pages or dashboard pages where the users are sent after login.
Even if the user doesn’t have a current membership, they can still view the page.
A common mistake is to over-restrict pages used in the login process, creating redirect loops for those users who are logged in but don’t currently possess full access. By allowing them to log in and conduct business, you can enable them to update payment information, make new purchases, etc.
Logged Out Only is most useful for login or registration pages that should not be viewable by one of your members once they’ve already logged in. This prevents the page from being viewed by anyone but an anonymous user.
Only one login status can be chosen, as they are essentially the opposites of each other.
Restricting Content by Contact ID
Unlike tags and memberships which control access based on the group or segment that the viewer belongs to, this setting controls access based only on the unique identity of the viewer. You can specify multiple contacts by including each contact’s ID #, and separate them with commas (CSV format). The contact ID refers to the ID# of the contact in your CRM system, not the WordPress User ID.
This setting is most useful for testing purposes, or when creating pages that can only be viewed by members based on their identity.
This setting can be very useful when creating test pages on your live site, in order to restrict access to the page only to your test users, so that your actual customers don’t stumble across the page and see your work in progress.
Restricting Content by Tags
You can use the wide range of tags you create in your CRM to control access. This is similar but different than membership-based access controls. Memberium provides an input box with autocompleting tag names so that you can specify which tags are required to be held by the visitor to view the page.
If multiple tags are specified for the page in an input box, then as long as the visitor has any of the tags, they will be given access to the page.
If there is a second required tag input box, then the visitor must have ANY tag from Box 1, AND ANY tag from Box 2 to be granted access.
Hiding From Menus
By default, Memberium already hides links in menus that users don’t have access to. For instance, if a user doesn’t have the right membership to access a menu item, Memberium wouldn’t even show the menu item.
This option allows you to hide the item in the menu regardless of whether the user has access or not. This option prevents the page/post/etc from showing in any of your site menus.
Google First Click Free
This option provides the ability to allow a non-member visitor to see protected content if they are following a link to it from Google. This option does not log the visitor in, and if they click another link, then the normal protections are in effect. There is nothing that prevents the user from searching for more Google links to your site to access more pages.
This option is typically used on magazine-style sites to give a new visitor a “taste” of your content before requiring that they log in to consume more.
This solution may be useful in certain cases. However, as a general guideline, we recommend carefully considering your decision before enabling First Click Free access to your premium content.
Prohibited Action
Hide Completely – This option allows you to completely hide the page. This will normally result in a 404 error if someone tries to access the page without permission.
Show Excerpt Only – Using this setting, you can display the page/post’s excerpt to the user. You can also display the default excerpt setup in Memberium’s settings.
Site Default – This will apply the default Prohibited Action which is set up in Memberium’s settings.
Redirect – This options lets you redirect a user to another page.
Redirect URL
This box will appear if you’ve chosen the Redirect option above or if you’ve set your Site Default to Redirect and chosen the default for this page.
In this box, you can specify which URL you want the user to be taken to if they don’t have permission to access the page/post.
