Question

I have a webpage that I want to be accessible only when entering their email. I currently have an email system (PHP) in place that collects the email address of a user, sends an email confirmation and shows a confirmation page.

What I am attempting to do is have it so this confirmation page is the only page that will get you to a second webpage. If you try to access this second webpage from anywhere else, it should refuse access, give an error, or point back to the page where you are prompted to input your email.

So my question is how do I create a handshake between the two webpages and block all other requests?

There may be a better way to do this that does not require a handshake between the two webpages, if you know another way to get the same result, fantastic.
So far I have thought maybe there could be a way to do this using htaccess, although I’m a newbie.

Answer 1

You can pass the email address in the confirmation link and when user come to confirmation page create a session variable and make it true. After that check for the session variable on the second page. if session variable is there show the page else redirect to the email entering page.

Click to confirm (www.example.com/confirm.php?email=[e-mail])
if([e-mail] is in DB)
{
 session['isUser'] = true;
}

In confirmation page

if(isset(session['isUser'])){
 if(session['isUser']==true){
  Display the page
 }
 else{
  redirect to subscription page
 }
}
else{
  redirect to subscription page
}