Plugins are great for extra things that don't need to be integrated.

Plugins are great for extra things that may not necessarily have mass-adoption because of a limited user base.

But also... Plugins are great to experiment and adapt features that may later be added to core. See the Rest API, Menus, and the MP6 redesign.

So please, don't dismiss the plugin. If a plugin is REALLY good, it may end up in core. Use the plugin. The more people who use it, the more obvious it becomes as to what's needed. :)

1. This is a common need. In addition to the use cases Graham Stoney described, I would add several others:
   • Landing pages after user actions, eg. a thank you page after users fill out a web form.
   • Custom error pages
2. This information would be used by many other plugins.

   Plugins are great for extra things that don't need to be integrated. For example, the AMP plugin adds additional functionality to your site. Most other plugins aren't impacted by your installation of AMP.

   The page visibility status is used by many other plugins.

3. This will significantly improve user experience for these use cases. Others have pointed out that similar functionality is possible and the various how-to pages describing this. However, the complexity of this work is obvious in the how-to pages, and even then there may be other plugins that are missed.
4. This shouldn't be hard to implement, the visibility attribute of pages already exists.

Wordpress development Should take a look at core functions as it is 2010s, instead of just updating "responsive nice icons" or "add image size Medium-Large" Wow! ...

A true HIDDEN "statement" would be nice. I do Wote YES in this suggestion, But how( in what case/ who and when) as Default statement?

There are SOM MANY scenarios! We (Intervik development) been working with this for YEARS! And once we found a "base" solution - a few ascenarios later - we need to re-think...

Like myself and Many comments here, is not thought through by architecture, only by needs.

Adding one "Hidden" solution as core, will propably needed to be unhooked by complex wordpress inviroment that actually not using Worpdress as a homepage or Blog.

A situation like commented below, can easy be (and should) accomplished by extensions or plugins:

...need to have 'hidden' pages that are accessible only by shared links.

Its just like CSS if you comapare "display - none" with "visibility - hidden". The latter, Something is still there, taking space (generated page) but Hidden on the homepage crosslink functionality.

Hidden, invisible or disguised as cloked?

But what if I deactivate a plugin, but wanna keep the installed pages and content for them, but wanna Hide them as long as the plugin is deactivated?

• Like Woocommerce "Cart" pages?
• Like WPML all translated dublications?

Do we wanna hide access to them or "hide" them?

Consider the WordPress default architecture of POST STATUS. Thats the easyest way to "HIDE" content, and "un-cloak" for some situations, like a role in the case below.

Many tasks in this topics, is already there:

The example below shows the many complex if or not / statement the status can provide.

function intervik_custom_hidden_status(){
	if(current_user_can( 'update_core')) $p = true;
		else $p = false;
	register_post_status('archive', array(
		'label'                     => _x( 'Hidden', 'post' ),
		'public'                    => $p,
		'exclude_from_search'       => true,
		'show_in_admin_all_list'    => true,
		'show_in_admin_status_list' => true,
		'protected' => false,
		// '_builtin' => true, /* internal use only. */
		'label_count'               => _n_noop( 'Hidden <span class="count">(%s)</span>', 'Hidden <span class="count">(%s)</span>' )
	));
}
add_action( 'init', 'intervik_custom_hidden_status' );

Above is something that Wordpress developers could consider as a good start of "HIDDEN" checkbox...

/ Just sharing a though around this "Hidden" topic

I found this page while searching for an easy method to do this since I am not technically inclined. It's one of the major reasons I'm using Wordpress for our business website.

We need to be able to hide our Promotion page from visitors and prying eyes of competitors.

There are more and more businesses building their websites with Wordpress to make the switch to a mobile-friendly site. These are all 'page' oriented sites as ours is.

Surely there are plenty more out there like us who need this feature than those who stumbled their way to this page as I accidentally did.

My core problem is that when I create "Thank You" pages, I use Yoast SEO plugin to set these pages as "noindex", so that search engines don't index them. However, these pages still appear in the internal search results in Wordpress. This is very frustrating.

I have read through all the comments, and I think it is a valid request to have a page visibility type of "hidden" added to WP Core which automatically sets the page to "noindex" AND hides it from the internal Wordpress search results.

So while this is actively wanted, it's by a vocal minority. Which is the main issue. It's wanted, just not by enough to make it critical mass. The trac ticket linked in this thread starts to look at the myriad ways this simple change could be addressed. Once core makes a choice as to direction, that's it. But as it stands now, it's more flexible to do nothing and let plugins handle it.

And yeah, post formats were a nice idea that failed. I won't be surprised to see them removed in a year.

It's not about trying to do everything for everyone--but something mostly useful for the greatest number of people is a pretty good starting point.

This feature has managed to sustain interest over the years, and not only is it even more in line with the diversity of sharing options users expect out of the box now, it also seems to be inherently in line with what I see as the WordPress "philosophy": make things useful, powerful, and easy. (And then give them away...) WP offers some pretty good, VERY simple access control via 6 different user roles and 10 different capability levels built into every site (most of which never use more than 2-3 roles, at default levels, and all which could extend or modify these via plugins to get the job done precisely as they'd like it--clearly still not rendering all these user roles & levels redundant as far as the Core is concerned) so why not provide similar gradations in the access-control-via-content-visibility options? Just one more option (public-treated-as-hidden) and users would have a decent middle ground between public-treated-as-public and "You can't come in unless you know the secret clubhouse password".

Beyond that, I don't care if people want to set a page to show only at midnight every five years under the light of a full moon when all the planets align. That's on them. :P

even if I absolutely refuse to use any plugins

Because WordPress will not ever do everything for everyone. It can't. It's impossible. So while I do totally understand that this is a big deal for the people who need it, the answer is not always going to be 'Core!'

And any time that's not the answer, we say "Plugins!" If a plugin is right, it may get added to core. That's how we got menus in the first place :)

It's a simple premise: I should be able to fine-tune page privacy even if I absolutely refuse to use any plugins and even if I have no idea how search engines work.

The main argument for hidden pages is NOT that plugin authors drag pages into the sunshine. They do, and they will, and that doesn't matter, because we can't really police every plugin out there. But it should be the fault of the plugin, not a missing part of the core.

WordPress is by far the most user friendly CMS out there, especially in its category, and there are more non-techies comfortable using it than I've seen for any of its rivals. A lot of other websites of all types now offer sharing via URL-only options and people have gotten used to it. The average user isn't going to look very far or dig into much for a functionality they now believe should have been there by default (or have mistakenly assumed is already there, as they'll find out once they set a page to private. Why set them up for a bad user experience like that?)

WordPress is also a very well-thought CMS: you wouldn't skip the user role "Author" between "Contributor" and "Editor", would you? Then why not include this? Hidden pages are the missing content visibility level between totally public and password-protected. They should be included in the core.

https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_page_menu

You can easily code that into your theme as you need.