This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

Simply Change Author URL

Description

The plugin Changes wordpress user slug for security reasons, it prevents access to the usernames of registered users on your site.

By using “Simply Change Author URL” The WordPress default users(authors) Slug and URL addresses will be changed automatically.

By Default Author URL is: example.com/author/[username]/
after install this plugin URLs will be changed to: example.com/user/[user_id]/

This will protects the usernames from being easily accessible by cyber attackers.

This plugin also:
1. Removes wordpress api user endpoints. (they contain information about users)
1. Changes canonical links generated by yoast.

Installation

INSTALL Simply Change Author URL FROM WITHIN WORDPRESS

  1. Visit the plugins page within your dashboard and select Add New;
  2. Search for 'Simply Change Author URL';
  3. Activate 'Simply Change Author URL' from your Plugins page;

INSTALL Simply Change Author URL MANUALLY

  1. Upload the 'simply-change-author-url' folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory;
  2. Activate the 'Simply Change Author URL' plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress;

FAQ

How to change “author_base” From “user” to something else

You can do this using a hook named 'simply_change_author_url_author_base' just return your desired Slug.
Remember to call <?php flush_rewrite_rules(); ?>, or manually flush rewrite rules by going to 'Setting' => 'Permalinks' and 'save' the settings.

Example Code:

add_filter('simply_change_author_url_author_base', 'changeAuthorSlug');

function changeAuthorSlug(){
    return 'example_slug';
}

Reviews

27 Deireadh an tSamhraidh, 2022
This is a must have, no-frills plugin for any member site where you have member profiles. By default WordPress uses the username as the slug for the author.php-based profile - a big security issue. This plugin does exactly what it says it should - uses the user ID instead, and lets you change the base slug as well. I have never used such a new plugin before or one with less than thousands of instalments, and no reviews, but decided to take a chance as it was just what I was looking for. I did find a couple of issues, and the author responded right away with tips to solve one and a new version to fix the others and make the plugin even better. Maybe one day this will become core. It should be.
Read all 1 review

Contributors & Developers

“Simply Change Author URL” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Changelog

1.1.2

  • simply_change_author_url_author_base filter works fine now.
  • username no longer prints in body classes.

1.1.1

  • fixed a bug where some canonical urls might not get replaced.

1.1.0

  • compatibility with yoast seo.
  • remove wordpress json api user endpoints.

1.0.0

  • Initial plugin release.