author page

Code snippet to block author pages

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So you can remove the author-pages with an author.php file in your (child) theme, but what if you don’t want to touch the theme you ask? Well, I just added this code snippet to two of the sites I manage to stop user-enumeration (which can be done on any WordPress site by going to /index.php?author=1):

add_action('wp','no_author_page');
function no_author_page() {
  if (is_author()) {
    global $wp_query;
    $wp_query->set_404();
    status_header( 404 );
    get_template_part( 404 );
    exit();
  }
}

Disclaimer: the bulk of above code was shamelessly copy/ pasted from https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/a/27124

Quick tip; disabling WordPress author pages

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I helped build a WordPress-site for a not-for-profit and they asked me to disable the author pages. Although I’m sure there are multiple plugin-based solutions, I ended up simply adding an author.php to my (child) theme with this in it;

<?php
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: /");
?>

As author.php is used for all author pages (if available, else archive.php is used), every attempt to reach an author page will result in a permanent redirect being sent, effectively disabling the author archive. Keeping it simple stupid!