If you are interested in customizing the author URL slug and base in WordPress, you have come to the right place. While WordPress allows you to customize the URLs for your posts, pages, and categories, it does not provide a built-in option to change the author URL. In this article, we will show you a simple method to customize the author’s URL slug and base in WordPress.
Changing the Author URL Slug
To get started, you will need to install and activate the Edit Author Slug plugin. This plugin adds options to each user’s profile page, allowing you to edit their slug. Once activated, go to the Users » All Users page in your WordPress dashboard. Click on the ‘Edit’ link below the username of the user whose slug you want to modify.
Scroll down to the ‘Edit Author Slug’ section, where you will find different choices that you can use as the author slug. You can even enter a custom slug of your own. After making your changes, click the ‘Update User’ button and preview your WordPress website. Now, when you click on the author’s name in a post, you will notice that it is using the selected author slug.
Changing the Author URL Base
If you want to change the author base from ‘/author/’ to something else, the Edit Author Slug plugin can assist you with that as well. Go to the Settings » Edit Author Slug page in your WordPress dashboard. Here, you can change the author base and even choose different bases for different user roles. Once you have made your changes, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings. You can now preview your site and click on the author link to see the changes.
Setting Up Redirects
It is important to note that changing the author slugs and base on an established website can have a negative impact on SEO, especially if your author archives are indexed. Visitors coming to author pages from search engines may encounter a 404 error message. To avoid this, you will need to set up redirects from the old URLs to the new ones.
To accomplish this, you can use the Redirection plugin. Install and activate it, then go to the Tools » Redirection page in your dashboard. In the ‘Add new redirection’ section, enter the old author page URL as the source and the new author URL page as the target. Don’t forget to click the ‘Add Redirect’ button to save your changes. The plugin will automatically redirect visitors from the old author page to the new URL.
If you have also changed the author base, you will need to set up redirects for those URLs as well. For example, if the new author URL base is ‘contributor’, you will need to set up appropriate redirection settings. If you are using the user role to create different author URL bases, you will need to repeat this process for each user role except for ‘author’.
An alternative solution is to use the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin. It offers a powerful Redirection Manager feature that allows you to set up full site redirects, and it also includes automatic 404 error tracking to ensure you have no broken links on your website. Consult our guide on how to set up redirects in WordPress for more details.
By following these steps, you can easily customize the author URL slug and base in WordPress, providing a seamless user experience while maintaining SEO integrity. For more WordPress tips and tutorials, subscribe to our YouTube Channel and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
