Peter Raschendorfer

<p>The Smart User Slug Hider Plugin hides usernames in Author Pages URLs to enhance Security</p>
<h3>Retired Plugin</h3>
<p>Development, maintenance and support of this plugin has been retired in october 2023. You can use this plugin as long as is works for you.</p>
<p>There will be no more updates and I won’t answer any support questions. Thanks for your understanding.</p>
<p>Feel free to fork this plugin.</p>
<h3>Usage</h3>
<p>The plugin automatically replaces user names with 16 digits coded strings. There are no settings. Just install and forget. Deactivating the Plugin restores the default WordPress behavior.</p>
<h3>Why use this plugin?</h3>
<p>WordPress uses the pattern <code>example.com/author/name</code> for author page URLs where <code>name</code> represents the users login name.</p>
<p>This means that the <strong>login names from all your users are publicly visible</strong> which is a serious security flaw.</p>
<p>The Smart User Slug Hider Plugin changes all author page URLs from e.g. <code>example.com/author/john</code> to something like <code>example.com/author/e9e716def73f76ac</code>.</p>
<p>The codes are generated automatically and its impossible to make conclusions about the user names. The WordPress default URLs will cause a 404 (not found) error.</p>
<h3>Shortcodes</h3>
<p>The plugin adds three shortcodes you can use in your posts:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>[smart_user_slug]</code> – the user slug of the post author – e.g. e9e716def73f76ac</li>
<li><code>[smart_user_url]</code> – the url of the post author’s profile page – e.g. example.com/author/e9e716def73f76ac</li>
<li><code>[smart_user_link]</code> – adds a link to the post author’s profile page</li>
</ul>
<h3>Theme Functions</h3>
<p>The plugin adds two functions that can be used in theme files:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>get_smart_user_slug( $author_id )</code> to <strong>get</strong> the user slug for the author – the parameter $author_id is optional, if omitted the author`s ID of the current post is used</li>
<li><code>the_smart_user_slug( $author_id )</code> to <strong>display</strong> the user slug for the author – the parameter $author_id is optional, if omitted the author`s ID of the current post is used</li>
</ul>
<h3>Plugin Privacy Information</h3>
<ul>
<li>This plugin does not set cookies</li>
<li>This plugin does not collect or store any data</li>
<li>This plugin does not send any data to external servers</li>
</ul>


Smart User Slug Hider

Hide usernames in Author Pages URLs to enhance Security

mattdu

<p>This plugin uses the custom taxonomy features of WordPress to create “bylines” — essentially, tags representing authors who contributed to a post. The differentiating feature of this plugin is that it should not require any modifications to your theme files (assuming it is already displaying the post author).</p>
<p>This plugin would be useful for publishing situations where the majority of your content is from contributors who you don’t necessarily want to have access to your back-end. It still conveys the appearance that the authors are members of the site (it provides a built-in archive page for each Byline). If your theme displays tag descriptions, you could use the Byline description field to identify guests vs. “staff” writers or provide other author information.</p>
<p>You can see an example of this plugin at work at http://thedailycougar.com</p>


Byline

The Byline plugin is simple and suitable for multi-author WordPress sites.

Best For Multi Author

Solves the co/multi-author problem without modifying the theme. Uses a custom taxonomy, "Byline," that replaces the Display Author.

Smart User Slug Hider vs Byline