I only use WordPress for work, but one thing that bothers me is there is no easy way to have a post be public (meaning accessible via direct URL) but not show up in any stream or notifications, such as the main /blog/ page and RSS feed.

What I want is the ability to share a blog post (to non-editors and non-administrators) before it goes live, meaning before it shows up on the main /blog/ page and RSS feed.

This is useful for getting feedback or simply previewing the post to only certain people (those that have the direct URL).

To be clear – I want to share a link that anyone can access, even if you are not logged-in to that WordPress account as an editor or administrator. I know there are ways to share the “Draft” preview of a post with other editors and admins, but this is for anyone.

When I fiddle with the “Publish” settings, I never get the desired result. When I change the visibility to “Private,” it only works for editors or administrators of that WordPress account.

My only solution was to set the visibility to “Public,” then change the published date to a very old date in the past (like something in the year 2000, but any old date will do). Then I add a “noindex, nofollow, noarchive” header to the page (easy to do via the “Edit Post” page), so search engines won’t pick it up, and any links to it won’t be followed.

This makes the post accessible to anyone via the actual permalink, yet hides it from all views, such as the main /blog/ page and RSS feed.

It still shows up when performing a search on the WordPress site, but you’d have to know the exact search terms.

It’s not the most elegant solution but it gets the job done. If anyone knows a better solution please let me know.