Why Is My Parent Page Not Showing on My Website in WordPress?

When you create a new WordPress website, one of the first things you’ll want to do is populate it with content. To do this you need to create some sample articles to get you started, and you’ll want to write more as you develop your site.

If you’re anything like me, the first thing you’ll do after creating a new website is try to get it populated with content as quickly as possible. While it is possible to do this manually, there are many cases where WordPress itself doesn’t provide any fast solutions. One such case is when you run into the problem of your parent page not showing up on your website. In this article we’ll discuss some of the most common causes of this issue and how to fix it. So sit back, relax, and get ready to learn! 

The Basics

When you sign up for a free WordPress account, you’ll be provided with a special parent page (usually titled “Home” or “Blog”) that you can use to launch your website. This is the page that visitors will see first and is normally used to give the reader an idea about what the site is about and why they should care.

In some cases, this parent page won’t appear by default when you launch a new WordPress website. To make it show up, you’ll need to do the following:

• Navigate to Settings > Reading
• Scroll down to Posts > Your Parented
• From here you can either Uncheck the box to remove the protection or Check it to keep the posts hidden from the public.
• Repeat for Your Homepage and Your Archive Pages
• Click Save Changes

The above steps will make your parent page show up on your website. However, if you try to publish new content while on the above screen, you’ll see the following error message:

The page you’re trying to edit is protected. You have to login to make changes.

A Few Tips & Tricks

Before we get into the various causes of this issue, let’s discuss a few tips and tricks that can help you avoid some of the common issues that arise when working with WordPress.

Firstly, make sure that you’ve given the page a suitable name. The page title is normally used as the page’s name and it’s a good idea to give it some additional keywords so that it shows up in the right place when a visitor uses a search engine to find content.

For example, let’s say that you’ve named your parent page “About Me” and it is currently set to show on your website’s home page, then when a visitor searches for “services” they’ll see your homepage as the top-listed result. However, if you were to name the page “My Blogging Tips” and it is set to show up on your website’s blog page, then when a person searches for “services” they’ll now see your blogging tips as the top-listed result.

Secondly, make sure that the template you’re using is child-friendly. There are many WordPress templates that are made specifically for small screens (like phones) and it’s a good idea to try and use a template that is mobile-friendly. This will make a big difference and help ensure that your website looks the same on whatever platform a visitor uses.

For example, if you were to use a desktop browser to navigate to your website, you’ll see a lot of pixels and it’ll take up a lot of room on your screen. However, if you were to use a mobile browser (like the Chrome or Firefox browsers) to view the same site, you’ll see a much more compact layout and it’ll take up less room on your screen.

The Causes of This Issue

Now that you’ve got the basics out of the way, let’s discuss the various reasons why your parent page might not be showing up on your website.

Note: It is possible for your parent page to show up on your website even when you’ve removed the protection for the post, if the post itself is marked as private. This is because when a page is marked as public, its contents are displayed publicly regardless of whether or not the page is protected.

As discussed above, when you create a new WordPress site and you don’t have any content yet, one of the first things you’ll want to do is populate it with some samples. To do this you’ll need to log in to your site and click on the Setting button (usually located in the upper right-hand corner of the screen). From here you can either choose to publish new content publicly or mark it as private (as long as you’ve got enough reputation).

If you choose to make the content private, then the above error message will show up when you try and publish new posts.

As a general rule, I wouldn’t recommend making any content private until you’ve given the site a good amount of content. There are many reasons for this:

• It takes time to build up enough trust to make content private, so don’t rush into it.
• If you’ve got a lot of content already and you decide to make some of it private, then there will be a lot of people that will be unable to access your site.
• As you gain more experience working with WordPress, you’ll learn to protect specific posts or pages from being accessed by certain individuals (or at least limit their access). By making all content private, you’ll stop all of this security from being applied and you’ll open yourself up to everyone (including hackers).

With all this talk about private content and hackers, you might be wondering what a WORDPRESS password is and why it’s important. A WORDPRESS password, also known as the admin password, is the username you’ll need to log in to your WordPress dashboard to make changes to the site (assuming you haven’t changed the username and password associated with the account).

You must keep this password safe and secure at all times because, as discussed above, anyone that knows this password can access your WordPress dashboard and make changes to the site. If your site’s dashboard is compromised, then so is your site.

How to Fix This Issue

Now that you know the possible causes of this issue, it’s time to discuss how to fix it. Again, I’d recommend working your way through this issue step by step to ensure that you fix it correctly. From what I’ve discussed above, it’s clear that there are several ways in which this issue can arise and several solutions, so take your time and go through each one carefully.

The first step is to make sure that the WordPress dashboard is correctly linked to your site. To do this, simply log in to your WordPress dashboard and click on the Website  button. A window will open up with a list of files associated with your website, the first of which is the WordPress dashboard itself.

Once you’ve located the WordPress dashboard, click on it to open up the file in a new tab. You’ll then need to make sure that the link to this file is correct (usually located in the URL field). If the link is incorrect, then the WordPress dashboard will not appear when you click on Settings > Reading.

The next step is to sign back in to your site and click on the Settings button. Next, you’ll need to scroll down to Posts (in the left-hand column) and click on the Your Parented link to open up the page in a new tab.

On this page, you can choose to Uncheck the box to remove the protection for the post or Check it to keep the content hidden from the public. If you choose to remove the protection, it is possible that the post will still appear on your parent page as long as you’ve got enough reputation. However, when this happens, you’ll need to make sure that all of your posts are private before you continue.