Blogs, by nature, are designed to be "public." The intent is to attract followers and build readership. But there are cases where posting updates for a private audience is preferred, and so many platforms offer ways to protect a blog behind a password or a subscriber account.
These types of blogs can be considered secure enough for general purposes, including a missionary worker who needs to keep their posts from the public eye but available to a select audience (likely their supporters and family). They are not viewable to someone who does not have access granted by you. And they are not searchable by internet search engines.
If you want to create a secured blog (or transition a private blog to a secured one), here are some of our recommendations:
Don’t host and administrate your own installation. Rather, use a paid service that will maintain the integrity of your website’s installation. For example, if your Wordpress install is dependent on you remembering to update to the latest version and keep Plugins up to date, something might fall out of sync and "break" your security. Your private blog could suddenly become public because you neglected to keep things in check. A paid service will administrate all this for you, so even a neglected blog will remain functional (and protected).
"Subscribers" are a more secure option than a global password. Some protected blogs will require each new reader to create a user account and be invited to connect to the private blog - each subscriber has their own username and password. A global password, on the other hand, is a single password that grands access to anyone who has it - while this is simpler, it’s not as secure. People are naturally more hesitant to share their personal login info with someone else, but much less concerned about sharing a global password. If you want to maintain control over who has access to view your blog, go with the "Subscriber" route.
Take additional measures to be secure. While your blog may remain private, there is the chance that someone will be careless with their login info, or that a reader will unwittingly copy and paste your content and share it publicly. If you are keeping a secured blog, chances are you have a reason to. 1) inform those who have access that they should never share or re-publish anything they find on your blog. You can even put a note like this prominently displayed in a sidebar or elsewhere on your site. 2) Consider not using your last name in your website. Don’t add personal contact information that links directly to you. Don’t brand your blog to AIM if it’s important to your security to maintain that separation. While your blog will likely be "personal" in nature, it does not have to link to you or AIM in an obvious way.
Most paid blogging services will offer some kind of "protected blog" option. Wordpress.com offers a very simple and robust model.
Wordpress admin - One-click to secure your blog:
A visitor’s view:
View this post for our recommendations on choosing a blogging service/ platform: