Lori Gallimore, Extension Specialist

One of the major concerns about “going on line” with a web-based portfolio has to do with security. How do we protect our 4-H’ers from John Q. Public and any potentially predatory activity? Our initial thoughts were to not publish the sites. Just ensure that each 4-H’er saves her portfolio and sends us the link to the unpublished site. The challenge is that if you do not have a Wix site … you can’t find the site.

It was getting too difficult.

Wix – the web development platform that we are using – has a way to add password protection to a page on your Wix site so that only visitors who have the password are able to view it. This will allow your 4-H member to publish his/her page … but only those person(s) with the password to actually see the page. Choosing to password protect a page also prevents search engines from crawling and indexing that page. This means that password protected pages do not appear in search results.

So, when your 4-H’er is ready to publish his/her portfolio. Please follow the steps below:

To password protect a page:

Notes:

• Adding a password to your homepage protects your entire site, unless someone has a direct link to an inner page.
• Any code you added using Wix Code to your site’s password protected pages or the public folder can still be viewed using a browser’s developer tools.

Tips:

• Learn how to Preview Your Password Protected Window.
• Remember to send the password to visitors who should have access to these pages. For those entering senior leadership and citizenship contests, you will need to include your website link (URL ad- dress) and your password in SUPER. Your passwords will only be shared with judges – no one else.

Agents, please be sure to share this information with your 4-H members. If you have questions, please let me know!