Hi! I was wondering if this will also prevent Google from indexing any /author/* pages?

Becuase right now, when doing a google search, one of the top results is sitename.com/author/username, and we would really prefer for that not to appear in any google search.

Thank you!

Just noticed that all author’s links lead to 404 error, because they are malformed:

http://author_name

Is it possible to remove link completely? If not, maybe to make it empty or lead to #?

The plug-in now redirects get_comment_author_link to get_comment_author, which results in get_comment_author being called with the actual proposed HTML of the author element, which is of course not a valid comment ID and therefore “Anonymous” is returned. That then gets used as the comment author.

Example backtrace:

#0 wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(326): get_comment_author()
#1 wp-includes/plugin.php(205): WP_Hook->apply_filters()
#2 wp-includes/comment-template.php(290): apply_filters()
#3 wp-content/themes/generatepress/inc/structure/comments.php(43): get_comment_author_link()
#4 wp-includes/class-walker-comment.php(183): generate_comment()
#5 wp-includes/class-wp-walker.php(147): Walker_Comment->start_el()
#6 wp-includes/class-walker-comment.php(139): Walker->display_element()
#7 wp-includes/class-wp-walker.php(159): Walker_Comment->display_element()
#8 wp-includes/class-walker-comment.php(139): Walker->display_element()
#9 wp-includes/class-wp-walker.php(390): Walker_Comment->display_element()
#10 wp-includes/comment-template.php(2400): Walker->paged_walk()
#11 wp-content/themes/generatepress/comments.php(99): wp_list_comments()
#12 wp-includes/comment-template.php(1627): require('...')
#13 wp-content/themes/generatepress/inc/structure/comments.php(227): comments_template()
#14 wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(324): generate_do_comments_template()
#15 wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(348): WP_Hook->apply_filters()
#16 wp-includes/plugin.php(517): WP_Hook->do_action()
#17 wp-content/themes/generatepress/inc/theme-functions.php(578): do_action()
#18 wp-content/themes/generatepress/single.php(29): generate_do_template_part()
#19 wp-includes/template-loader.php(106): include('...')
#20 wp-blog-header.php(19): require_once('...')
#21 index.php(17): require('...')
#22 {main}

I don’t understand why it’s mucking with comment authors to begin with – they have no connection to post author archives (the hyperlink used for the comment author name is merely their website, if they provided one – even for logged in users).

Is there any way to disable author archives but still have the author name appear on posts where functions like the_author_posts_link are called?

Hello @freemp,

First of all thanks, thanks for your plugin. It is very useful for us.

I have been recommended your plugin to avoid removing author′s sites.

I have installed it and activated. Unfortunately, when I write the url webxxx/author/adminxxx, it still appears instead of 404 page.

I am using last versions of WP and GUTENVERSE theme.

Thanks for your support.

I’d suggest you also hide the users page from the sitemap.

add_filter( 'wp_sitemaps_add_provider', function(  $provider, $name ) {
	if ( $name === 'users' )
		return NULL;
	return $provider;
}, 10, 2 );

Hello @freemp,

first of all thanks for your great plugin that switches off these author archive pages that should be unnecessary (and therefore unprofessional to be presented though) for a great number of WordPress websites.

Now we found a problem with the important theme “Avada”.

If we browse to /author/admin/ with your plugin activated the 404 is generated as expected, but there additionally is a jQuery error in the console and not every JS element in the main menu keeps working on this /author/admin/ page.

The error:

Uncaught Error: Syntax error, unrecognized expression: #/
    jQuery 9
    refresh https://[DOMAIN]/wp-content/themes/Avada/assets/min/js/library/bootstrap.scrollspy.js?ver=3.3.2:1
    jQuery 3
    refresh https://[DOMAIN]/wp-content/themes/Avada/assets/min/js/library/bootstrap.scrollspy.js?ver=3.3.2:1
    s https://[DOMAIN]/wp-content/themes/Avada/assets/min/js/library/bootstrap.scrollspy.js?ver=3.3.2:1
    e https://[DOMAIN]/wp-content/themes/Avada/assets/min/js/library/bootstrap.scrollspy.js?ver=3.3.2:1
    jQuery 2
    e https://[DOMAIN]/wp-content/themes/Avada/assets/min/js/library/bootstrap.scrollspy.js?ver=3.3.2:1
    <anonymous> https://[DOMAIN]/wp-content/themes/Avada/assets/min/js/general/avada-scrollspy.js?ver=7.7.1:1
    jQuery 13
        e
        t
        setTimeout handler*Deferred/then/l/<
        c
        fireWith
        fire
        c
        fireWith
        ready
        B
        EventListener.handleEvent*
        <anonymous>
        <anonymous>
		
jquery.min.js:2:13639

As soon as we switch off your plugin the jQuery error in the console is gone.

The error only occurs if we use “Layouts” in Avada (which is like in other themes a special Avada feature). We have many other Avada installations that don’t use layouts and there we don’t see the above problem with your plugin.

Since Avada really is an important theme with many, many installations we thought you might want to look into this and make your plugin compatible with Avada layouts?

Greetings and thanks for your work,
-doffine

I’d rather make the user profile links not clickable at all instead of sending them to a 404. But on specific users.

Any way to achieve this?
Thanks

Hey, i would like to contribute. In the admin users page, the *View* link is visible, although it the url is now ‘#’. Im proposing to remove the *View* link. Is there any concern on this?

add_action( 'user_row_actions',
	function( $actions ) {
		if ( isset( $actions['view'] ) ) {
			unset( $actions['view'] );
		}

		return $actions;
	} );

I know it sounds extremely silly with this plugin not having an interface but I think it would be a nice feature if polygots can translate the description of this plugin to make this amazing plugin more accessible for worldwide users ??

So it doesn’t redirect the author archive to home page put rather return a 404?

Hi there

Google Search Console reported a Sitemap 404 error from my site and after some diagnosis I determined this otherwise great plugin was causing it.

Author: Might be worth confirming/fixing – I’ve disabled the plugin for now but be keen to reuse if this issue is fixed

Hey!
I want to use the plugin “Disable Author Archives” on my website. My question to the author: Is this plugin conform with the GDPR and does it collect any data?
Thanks for your reply!

Hi,

Thanks for the nice plugin.

It does it job, and gives 404-page instead of author page, but is the plugin search engine(or similar)/code level safe? So can author email be found still even though 404-page is shown. I mean are those author details (email address) still available if one knows how to search for them? I want to totally hide those from the front-end.

At the moment I have one technical issue why I can’t use WP’s hide contact info setting unfortunately (propably later I could).

Thank you for the support.