Weston Ruter

This plugin is developed at <a href="http://www.shepherd-interactive.com/" title="Shepherd Interactive specializes in web design and development in Portland, Oregon" rel="nofollow ugc">Shepherd Interactive</a> 
for the benefit of the community. No support is available. Please post any questions to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/tags/private-page-forbidden?forum_id=10" rel="ugc">support forum</a>.
Instead of serving a 404 Not Found error with the <code>404.php</code> template, send a 403 Forbidden error and set <code>$wp_query->is_403</code> and load 403.php if it exists.
Provides a filter <code>forbidden_redirect</code> which if results in a non-empty filtered value will result in the user being redirected if attempting to visit a forbidden page; the default value is <code>""</code> (no redirect).
Useful with a filter which selectively prevents a private post from being forbidden, so that the page will not show up in the navigation and won’t be included in XML Sitemaps, for example.
<pre>function my_filter_private_posts($posts){ if(is_singular() && $posts[0]->post_status == 'private' && #Now optionally allow/disallow based on user session: in_array($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], (array)@$_SESSION['allowed_private_uris'])) ){ header('Cache-Control: private'); #Prevent proxies from caching this private page $posts[0]->post_status = 'publish'; } return $posts; } add_filter('posts_results', 'my_filter_private_posts');</pre>

Private Page Forbidden

Instead of serving a 404 Not Found error with the 404.php template, send a 403 Forbidden error and set $wp_query->is_403 and load 403.

Jesin A

WordPress offers inbuilt support for custom 404 pages on all themes. But what about custom pages for other common errors like 401 and 403? You end up seeing a bland error page of the Web Server.
With this plugin you can easily create custom 401 and 403 error pages with any theme without writing a single line of code!!! And the best part is that you set it and forget it. Yes, you don’t have to do any changes even if you change themes. The heading and text you want on 401 and 403 error pages are displayed on the currently active theme.
<h4>Further Reading</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://websistent.com/wordpress-custom-403-401-error-page/" rel="nofollow ugc">Create WordPress 401 and 403 error pages</a> WITHOUT using this plugin</li>
<li>The <a href="https://websistent.com/wordpress-plugins/custom-error-pages/" rel="nofollow ugc">Custom Error Pages Plugin</a> official homepage.</li>
</ul>

Custom Error Pages

Create custom 401 and 403 error pages with any WordPress theme without writing a single line of code, set it up and forget it.

Private Page Forbidden vs Custom Error Pages