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I want to work with a freelancer to make adjustments to my website, but I’m reluctant to share my login and password. I’ve heard before that when the site owner and the freelancer get into an argument or something; the freelancer can take the site hostage by changing passwords. Is there a way to protect my website while working with a freelancer?
If I were to create a New User Role for the freelancer, can I set it up so that the freelancer can’t change the password or any other vital parts of the site?
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Good call!
Yes, creating a new user role for the freelancer is probably a good idea. You can create a custom user role with limited permissions, allowing the freelancer to access only the necessary parts of the site (editing posts or pages). You can even use a plugin such as User Role Editor to restrict their access.
Additionally, you should create a backup of your website before giving the freelancer access. This way, you can have peace of mind and protect your website while working with a freelancer.
I hope it doesn’t come to a hostage situation, haha!
Edit: Clarity
What are you wanting them to do exactly? If it’s just content-related things, the Editor role is great for that. But for anything more than that, they need admin access. You can create a tweaked admin role with the User Role Editor plugin.
Create a copy of the website and designate it as development server.
The developer will have access to only the development server. There they can mess around and make any changes they need.
Set up a second server called Staging. This is where before the code is deployed you’ll make a live copy of the site (so it has the most recent content). You test on this server. Developer has no access to this server.
If everything works on Staging then you know you are good to push the changes to your live site.
Also have github or bitbucket set up so code changes can be tracked.
This way if there are any issues with the developer your live site is unaffected.
To clarify, the developer only has accessed to the dev server. Staging and Live are only accessible to you.