How to remove or hide author page from user

  • Hello
    I am new here and so i hope i am posting the question in the right category. I have some decent experience in using wordpress for my websites (not coding though). And i am facing an unique problem in my site. In short let’s say my website name is “Mywebsite” : There is a page called Mywebsite.com/author, that exists which i haven’t created. And it looks like a normal blog post page. But i never created this author page. If i am logged in, i don’t even see the option to edit this page at the top but there are other option like clear cache, dashboard etc.

    I tried to do an experiment and create a new page with name author. And the page is automatically named Mywebsite.com/author2

    It seems there is an author page but for some reason it’s hidden. Then why would the page be named author 2? I don’t have same problem with my other site. If go to “othersite.com/author” it gives error as no such page exists.

    Note i am using a plugin called Yoast SEO and i noticed in it’s settings it says something about an author sitemap being enabled or disabled. I don’t understand what it means. But it is disabled. I tried changing it to see if the author page disappears or give 404 error like in my other sites. It doesn’t.

    I have also tried some plugins which is suppose to remove author page. It doesn’t work. The page stays.

    Why is this happening? Though the link of the site is not in my website. But anyone can randomly access it by putting it in the URL. It looks quite unprofessional.

    I would really appreciate if someone can explain to me what is the problem.

    Note: I haven’t posted link of my website here as it’s a new site and i wanted to maintain some privacy till i set it up.

    Thank you for reading this question.

    • This topic was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by zundex.
    • This topic was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by zundex.
Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

  • All wordpress sites generally have a page for authors of the blog regardless of theme.

    It uses details from the Users section to populate the page and dislays using the author template:

    https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Author_Templates

    Thread Starter zundex

    (@zundex)

    Hello Shanon
    Thank you for the reply.
    I read the template briefly and i would go through it in detail again, but i wanted to restrict entry of users to the “mywebsite.com/author” page. Can i do that?

    I am ok with them visiting the page “mywebsite.com/author/admin” but not “mywebsite.com/author”.

    But i don’t seem to understand why i got 404 error for my other sites. Is this a new addition?

    You could do it with some regular expressions in .htaccess possibly.

    You could try something like this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11283547/restrict-other-users-to-access-author-page-wordpress

    Or try a plugin: https://en-au.www.ads-software.com/plugins/restrict-user-access/

    Thread Starter zundex

    (@zundex)

    I have found something in my YOAST SEO plugins. Can this explain anything?

    Inside Yoast SEO > Titles & Metas > Archive (It’s Written) :

    If you’re running a one author blog, the author archive will be exactly the same as your homepage. This is what’s called a duplicate content problem. If this is the case on your site, you can choose to either disable it (which makes it redirect to the homepage), or to add noindex,follow to it so it doesn’t show up in the search results. Note that links to archives might be still output by your theme and you would need to remove them separately.

    Note: There are two option and both are enabled. Options are :

    Author Archives and Meta Robots. I tried disabling author archives but doesn’t change anything.

    Thread Starter zundex

    (@zundex)

    I have actually tried a plugin. I will try it again. The thing is :

    I don’t want people to not see “mywebsite.com/author/john” rather they shouldn’t see “mywebsite.com/author” lol. Sorry for the complication. Actually this page looks like a typical homepage post that is why i wanted to get rid of it. And i wasn’t sure whether the problem is related to theme or wordpress or plugins.

    From the information in YOAST SEO plugin which i posted earlier. It seems it has something to do with YOAST. I am not sure. Due to lack of knowledge i am not experimenting much. Though i am itching to disable all the settings and see if it works.

    I have tested by removing the plugin. But another issue is i am not sure whether the problem will be solved instantly or take time.

    I will give your suggested plugin a go and see. Then report back. Thank you.

    Disable – redirecting to the homepage is probably the perfect solution

    It should look like the homepage if it is diabsled (it is redirecting to the homepage)

    Thread Starter zundex

    (@zundex)

    I have actually tested it by disabling both option.
    It does redirects to my homepage if someone tries to access the link “mywebsite.com/author/john” or “mywebsite.com/author/mary” or whatever.

    But if i put only “mywebsite.com/author” then it doesn’t redirect rather it shows a page similar to a blog post. It has sidebar and everything.

    It’s really weird. I guess someone with experience in using Yoast SEO can tell if it’s related to the plugin. As i did tried disabling it as well to see if anything changes.

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by zundex.
    Thread Starter zundex

    (@zundex)

    Thank you Shanon for your replies. I think i have finally figured out the problem. And it’s pretty weird problem.

    It happened because i uploaded an image with the name Author as background for my author’s page. For some reason, which i am not aware of, it resulted in wordpress creating an author page with the image as a post.

    I solved it by deleting the image and renaming it and uploading it. Now the page is gone.

    I have no idea why it happened. But it seemed to have solved the issue. I would love to understand why this happened and maybe help out fellow people.

    Yep, that’s standard with wordpress when permalinks are active – any new image or page are assigned the permalink /name-of-image-or-page/ – first in first served. All additional pages or images of the same name will be assigned as: /name-of-image-or-page-2/

    Even more painful – you can change the slug/permalink on the image page BUT it will redirect the old slug to the new slug which creates even more confusion

    Thread Starter zundex

    (@zundex)

    Thank you for the replies. It took some trial and error to figure it out.

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
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