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WPBeginner» Blog» Themes» How to Remove Author Name from WordPress Posts (2 Easy Ways)

How to Remove Author Name from WordPress Posts (2 Easy Ways)

Last updated on February 3rd, 2021 by Editorial Staff
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How to Remove Author Name from WordPress Posts (2 Easy Ways)

Do you want to remove the author name from your WordPress blog posts? Normally, blog posts are supposed to show author name with other meta-data like date and category.

However, some blog owners may not want to display the author name next to their blog posts.

By default, WordPress does not have an option to remove author name, and you must select an author to publish a post.

In this article, we will show you two ways to easily remove author name from your WordPress posts. We will also discuss the pros and cons of each approach.

Remove author name from WordPress posts

Why Would You Want to Remove Author Name?

Author name is an important type of metadata added to your WordPress posts by default. It allows your readers to learn about authors who create content on your blog.

However, there are times when you may want to hide the author name.

For example: if multiple staff members in your team collaborate on each blog post, then it may seem unfair to credit a single staff member for the work.

In another scenario, you may have several contributors/freelance writers who occasionally write articles, but you want to keep a consistent style and voice for your blog.

With that said, let’s take a look at solutions for easily removing author name from WordPress posts while still allowing multiple authors to work in the background.

Method 1: Manually Remove Author Name from WordPress Posts

Your WordPress theme decides when and how to display the author name in your blog posts. Themes use multiple approaches to do that which makes it harder for a plugin to provide a generic solution for removing author names.

You will need to edit some code to prevent your theme from displaying the author name. If you are uncomfortable editing code, then try the second method instead.

The first method requires you to edit WordPress theme files. If you haven’t done this before, then please take a look at our guide on how to copy and paste the code in WordPress.

Note: Make sure that you create backup of your theme or child theme before making any changes. If something goes wrong, then this will help you easily revert changes.

WordPress themes use different variations of code to display the author name. You will need to locate the code responsible for showing the author’s name in your theme files and delete it.

Most common locations to find this code are single.php, content.php, archive.php, and index.php files.

In many cases, you will not be able to find the code that outputs author name. Instead, you will find a template tag defined in the functions.php file or template-tags.php file.

For example, the default Twenty Nineteen theme uses the function twentynineteen_posted_by to display author name. This function is defined in template-tags.php file and uses the following code:

function twentynineteen_posted_by() {
		printf(
			/* translators: 1: SVG icon. 2: post author, only visible to screen readers. 3: author link. */
			'<span class="byline">%1$s<span class="screen-reader-text">%2$s</span><span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="%3$s">%4$s</a></span></span>',
			twentynineteen_get_icon_svg( 'person', 16 ),
			__( 'Posted by', 'twentynineteen' ),
			esc_url( get_author_posts_url( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ) ) ),
			esc_html( get_the_author() )
		);
	}
endif;

Once you have located the code that outputs the author name, you need to delete it.

For example, you have to delete the code from the second line to the ninth line in the above code. After that, the remaining code will look like below.

function twentynineteen_posted_by() {
}
endif;

Don’t forget to save your changes after deleting the author name code. Then, upload the files back to your website.

You can now visit your website to see your changes in action:

Author Name Removed in WordPress Post Demo

This method hides the author name on all your posts; however, the author archive pages will remain intact. An author archive page is where WordPress creates a list of all articles written by a specific user.

You can find author archive page on a URL like this:

https://example.com/author/samsmith/

This URL is discoverable by search engines, which means you may still get traffic to those pages.

You can disable the author archives easily using the All in One SEO plugin. Once you install and activate the plugin, go to All in One SEO » Search Appearance in your dashboard and then click the ‘Archives’ tab.

Now you can see the author archive settings. You can toggle Author Archives switch and disable author archives on your site.

disable author archives in WordPress

Doing so will disable author archives and hide author-sitemap.xml file created by the AIOSEO plugin.

Method 2: Create a Generic Author Name for Publishing WordPress Posts

This method does not remove the author name, but it can be used as a workaround.

You will create a generic author name and use it for all your past and future articles. You will need to change the author name before publishing each post.

Note: This method is irreversible. If you do this and want to revert, then you will have to edit each post and assign it to the original author manually.

That being said, let’s get started.

First add a new author to your WordPress site and give it a generic username such as editorialteam.

Add new user

Next, you need to visit Users » All Users page and click on the ‘Edit’ link below the username you just added.

Edit user

On the user profile screen, scroll down to the ‘Nickname’ option and enter the name you want to be displayed (for example, Editorial Team).

After that, click on the drop down menu next to ‘Display name publicly as’ option and select the nickname you just entered.

Select display name

You can also add a generic bio and even create a gravatar for that user account.

Now go to Posts » All Posts page and click on the screen options menu at the top. Enter 999 for number of items to display.

Show all posts on screen

This will allow you to quickly edit and change author name for a large number of posts.

You need to select all posts using the checkbox and then select edit under the bulk actions drop down menu. After that click on the ‘Apply’ button to continue.

Select all posts for bulk editing

WordPress will now show you the bulk editing options. You need to change the author to the generic author name you added earlier and then click on the Update button.

Bulk change author name

WordPress will now update all selected posts and change author name. Remember, this process may take some time depending on how fast your WordPress hosting is.

If you have more than 999 posts, then you will need to go to page 2 and repeat the process.

That’s all. You can now visit your website to see it in action.

Editorial Team as Author Name

Our Recommendation

Removing author name using the coding method gets the job done, but it is not the best solution. For example, if you are not using a child theme, then a theme update will override your changes.

This is why we recommend the second method to create a generic author name.

Doing so allows you to use the built-in WordPress functionality and does not require you to edit any code. It will not remove author name or archives but will make them generic. It will also help to ensure consistency of authorship on your site.

If you are good with coding, then you can also use a combination of both approaches. You can create a generic author name to publish all your blog posts, and then hard-code author profile in a WordPress child-theme.

We use a similar approach at WPBeginner. You can see ‘Editorial Staff’ as the author for all blog posts including this one you are reading right now.

Generic Author Name on WPBeginner Article

You can also see that in the author info box at the bottom of the article.

Generic Author Info Box in WPBeginner Article

If you want to add an author info box like this, then take a look at the best free author bio box plugins.

We hope this article helped you learn how to remove author name from WordPress posts. You may also want to see our list of 30 effective ways to monetize your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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30 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Steve Foerster says:
    Jan 25, 2021 at 8:17 pm

    Thank you, this was helpful.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jan 26, 2021 at 10:21 am

      Glad our guide was helpful :)

      Reply
  2. Chris says:
    Jan 16, 2021 at 6:49 pm

    Wouldn’t copying and pasting the folder and file into your child theme, and then deleting or commenting out this snippet, be the best solution?

    Versus recommending editing the parent theme files directly.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jan 19, 2021 at 11:27 am

      If possible, that would be a good option but not all themes can be easily added into a child theme like that without issues.

      Reply
  3. Debbie says:
    Dec 18, 2020 at 6:16 pm

    This was super helpful and I used the second method successfully. Thanks!

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Dec 21, 2020 at 10:17 am

      Glad our guide was helpful :)

      Reply
  4. Mark Toney says:
    Sep 29, 2020 at 1:25 pm

    I took all the steps outlined – but when I got to the BULK edit – it would not show the new name of Editorial Team in the dropdown. I logged out and back in again and it still does not allow that name. Any ideas on why or a fix?

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Sep 30, 2020 at 10:11 am

      You would want to check the role permissions for the user you created that they would be able to have posts on your site for a likely culprit

      Reply
  5. daveF says:
    Mar 30, 2020 at 10:25 pm

    One thing to be aware of with the second method – when you bulk update the posts with the new ‘author’, the “last updated’ date is changed to the current date. If your theme displays the “last updated” metadata, it will appear that all your post happened on the same day. I did this on a church blog that was only a week old and had only a few posts, so it was not a big deal. If you have hundreds of existing posts over a long period of time, it might be a big deal to you. I wish that had been pointed out in the article. It makes perfect sense in retrospect, but I didn’t think about it until the deed was done. Maybe this comment will help someone else contemplating making this change.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Mar 31, 2020 at 10:20 am

      Thank you for sharing this, we’ll look into clarifying that in the future with this article :)

      Reply
  6. praveen says:
    Feb 1, 2020 at 10:34 am

    How to change a label name in a wordpress theme? For example am working on a education theme , and on the top of the course the author label is show as “Teacher”. I want to change the label as “Instructor”. Please help.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Feb 3, 2020 at 8:47 am

      It would depend on what added that label. If it was added by your theme you would need to reach out to the theme’s support for example

      Reply
  7. Otte says:
    Nov 5, 2019 at 12:52 pm

    It’s better to add CSS in the theme

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Nov 6, 2019 at 9:20 am

      Not always, hiding the text with CSS means it’s not visible to most users but site crawlers can still find the author name

      Reply
  8. Kees says:
    May 11, 2019 at 2:35 pm

    Thank you very much. Very helpfull, very clear

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      May 13, 2019 at 11:54 am

      You’re welcome :)

      Reply
  9. Angelo says:
    Apr 6, 2019 at 11:44 am

    I’ve been able to edit the author url from the homepage to the author page by going to seo by yoast under “search appearance”. Thank you God bless you!

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Apr 8, 2019 at 11:44 am

      You’re welcome, thanks for sharing where you were able to edit the url.

      Reply
  10. suraj says:
    Feb 20, 2019 at 11:41 pm

    thanks 3rd one works for me (:

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Feb 21, 2019 at 10:24 am

      Glad our article could help :)

      Reply
  11. Milan says:
    Feb 5, 2019 at 5:21 am

    The plugin Show Hide Author is no longer available for download.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Feb 5, 2019 at 11:04 am

      Thank you for letting us know, we will certainly look into alternatives :)

      Reply
  12. Melissa says:
    Jan 4, 2019 at 3:29 pm

    Is there a reason you didn’t include the display: none; option for custom css?

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jan 8, 2019 at 10:03 am

      That would only hide the name until someone inspected the page at which point the name would be simple to find :)

      Reply
  13. Michelle says:
    Jun 28, 2018 at 3:57 pm

    Thank you! This solution was very easy to implement and worked perfectly.

    Reply
  14. Glen Appleton says:
    Mar 29, 2018 at 9:21 pm

    And then there’s the CSS method, which you covered partially in the first (plugin) method. Use the same element inspector to find the CSS class (byline in Twenty Seventeen theme), and use the CSS selector to set the display to “none”. For example:

    article.type-post .byline {
    display: none;
    }

    NOTE: This only removes it from the rendered page, and not the page source. You should create a separate editor account for posting articles on your site, and make sure that account doesn’t have admin privileges.

    Hope this helps.

    Reply
  15. Ngoc Anh says:
    Mar 9, 2018 at 7:39 am

    Hi, How can I hide the author description below the post? Please help me! thanks a lot

    Reply
  16. joe says:
    Feb 26, 2018 at 7:58 pm

    just another security flaw in outdated wordpress. every post shows my login admin name. why someone wont update wordpress to fix the known issues hackers use to hack it just boggles my mind.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Feb 27, 2018 at 6:21 pm

      Hi Joe,

      Please see our guide on how to add or change your full name in WordPress. By adding a full name and selecting it to display publicly you would be able to stop WordPress form showing the username you use for login.

      Reply
  17. Ireneusz says:
    Dec 8, 2017 at 6:01 am

    Hi,

    I used Show Hide Author plugin, but not working. I removed author, but left “by”. I cannot remove “by” in theme FitWP in posts. There’s no class “byline” in code.

    I try put by in field Regular expressions, but not working.

    Please help me.

    Reply

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