How To Remove Author From WordPress Posts: 5 Easy Ways

Sometimes, you want to remove author from WordPress posts. Maybe you’re running a business blog where many people contribute, or you want to keep the focus on your content, not who wrote it. In other cases, the author’s name may not be useful or necessary for your readers.

If that sounds like your situation, you’ll be glad to know you can remove the author’s name from your posts. The only catch is that WordPress doesn’t offer a built-in setting to switch it off. That means you can’t just click a button in the settings and make it disappear. But there are a few simple methods you can use to make this happen.

This guide offers a selection of step-by-step methods for removing the author’s name. These include using a plugin, changing your theme files, adding custom CSS, or removing author data from your WordPress website’s SEO markup.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Use a plugin or custom CSS to hide author in WordPress.
• Full Site Editor allows you to remove the author block in block themes.
• Manually editing theme files works, but it requires coding skills.
• Set a generic author name to keep the field without displaying personal information.
• Disable author pages WordPress in search using an SEO plugin like AIOSEO.

Why Remove Author Name in WordPress?

There are many reasons you may wish to hide the author’s name from your WordPress posts. A common case is when a single post has received input from several people. In that situation, showing just one name can be confusing or unfair to the rest of the team.

Another reason is branding. If you’re trying to keep a strong and consistent voice across your WordPress website, it makes sense to speak as the brand, not as individual writers. This is especially true for business websites, online stores, or professional blogs where the focus is more on the message than the writer.

You may also be publishing guest posts or using freelance writers. In these cases, you may not wish to show the author’s name at all, either to keep things simple or to avoid confusion about who runs the site.

No matter the reason, removing the author’s name can help your WordPress site look cleaner and more consistent. It gives your posts a unified feel, which is helpful when you’re building trust with your readers.

How To Remove Author from WordPress Posts – 5 Easy Ways

In this section, we’ll go through the following methods to see how to hide author in WordPress:

1. Using a Plugin
2. Using a Generic Author
3. Manually Removing Author
4. Using CSS to Hide the Author
5. Edit Post Meta.

Let’s start with the first method below.

Use a WordPress Plugin

The easiest way to remove author from WordPress posts is by using a plugin. One great option is the WP Meta and Date Remover plugin. It’s simple, quick, and does the job without requiring any technical skills.

Here’s how to install and use it:

Navigate to WordPress Dashboard → Plugins → Add New. In the search bar, type WP Meta and Date Remover. Next, click Install Now. Once the installation is finished, click Activate.

After it’s active, the plugin starts working immediately. It hides the author name from your site’s front end using CSS. That means your visitors won’t see the author information on posts. It also removes author details from the back end by changing the PHP output so search engines won’t pick it up either.

This method is great for a fast, no-code solution. You don’t need to edit your theme files or worry about breaking anything. Just install the plugin, and your site is good to go.

Here’s how it appears before and after using the WP Meta and Date Remover plugin:

Use a Generic Author Name

If you don’t want to remove author from WordPress posts completely, but prefer to keep things neutral, using a generic author name is a smart option. This works well when your content is written by several people or edited by a team. Instead of showing one person’s name, you can display Editorial Team or Site Admin as the author.

Here’s how to set it up:

In the WordPress Dashboard, go to Users → Add New. Fill in the basic details. You can use a name like Editorial Team and a general email address. Additionally, set a strong password and the role to Author or Editor, depending on the access you want to give. Once done with that, click Add User.

After that, go to Users → All Users. Locate the new user you just created. Hover over it and click Edit.

Scroll down to Display name publicly as a dropdown and choose the generic name you just created. You may also update your profile picture, password, and other user-related settings. Ensure you click Update User at the bottom of the page to save your modifications.

Now, navigate to Posts, select all posts, choose Edit from the bulk action menu, and click Apply.

Change the author to your new generic user and click Update.

Here’s how it looks now:

This method keeps the author line visible but hides personal details. It helps create a consistent look across your WordPress website while still filling in the required author field. It’s also useful if your WordPress theme or plugin requires an author set for posts to work properly.

Manually Remove Author from WordPress Posts

If you’re comfortable working with code, you can manually remove the author name by editing your theme files. This method provides full control but requires a careful approach. We recommend you create a website backup before editing the file(s) or using a child theme.

Once done with that, go through the following step-by-step instructions to remove author from WordPress posts manually:

Navigate to WordPress Dashboard → Appearance → Theme File Editor. On the right side, look for template files:

EXAMPLE:
single.php
content.php
index.php
template-tags.php
archive.php.

Open one file at a time and search for code that shows the author’s name. It usually shows as the_author() or get_the_author(). Once you find it, either delete the line or comment it out by adding // at the start of the line. Lastly, click Update File to save the changes.

Now, visit your site and check a few posts to ensure WordPress removes author from posts. Here’s how it looks:

Note: If you don’t have access to the WordPress dashboard, you can edit theme files using an FTP client (e.g., FileZilla) or your hosting’s File Manager feature.

Using CSS to Hide Author Name

If you want a quick and simple way to hide the author name from your posts without touching theme files, use CSS. This method hides the author’s name visually, which means people won’t see it on your site, but it will still exist in the source code. So, while it works for users, search engines may still find it.

Here’s how you can do it:

Open any post or page that shows the author’s name. Right-click on the author name and select Inspect.

A panel will open showing your WordPress site’s code. Click the arrow tool, then hover over the author name. Look for a tag with a class. Write down the exact class to use in the next step.

Then, go to WordPress Dashboard → Appearance → Customize → Additional CSS and add the following code:

.author-name {
      display: none;
}

After that, click Publish to save your changes. Once done, visit one of your posts to ensure the author name is no longer visible.

IMPORTANT:

Keep in mind that the CSS class name .author-name is just an example. Different WordPress themes use different class names for author info. If this code doesn’t work, right-click on the author name on your site, select Inspect (in Chrome or other browsers), and check what class is being used. Replace .author-name in the code with the class name from your theme.

This method is easy and doesn’t require coding skills, but it’s mainly for hiding author names from visitors, not from search engines or bots. It means your WordPress website may still have author archive pages, which show all posts by that author. These pages often look like:

www.example.com/author/authorname

Search engines can still find and index these pages unless you disable them.

Disable Author Archives Using AIOSEO

To prevent search engines from showing your author archives, install and activate the All in One SEOplugin. Then, go through the following steps:

• Go to AIOSEO → Search Appearance.
• Click Archives.
• Under Author Archives, find Show in Search Results.
• Set it to No.
• Lastly, click Save Changes.

Using this simple method, WordPress disables author pages in search results. Now, search engines won’t show those author archive pages in results, keeping your site cleaner and more focused.

Edit Block Theme’s Meta Data to Hide Author Name

So far, we’ve shown you 4 ways to remove author from WordPress posts, but all work if you’re using a Classic theme, such as Astra. However, if you’re using a Block theme like Twenty Twenty-Three, you need to edit the Post Meta pattern in Full Site Editor. Here’s how:

Navigate to Appearance → Editor. This will open the Full Site Editor, where you can customize different parts of your theme. Next, click Patterns.

Then, click All template parts. Here, you’ll see different blocks that make up your theme layout. Find the block called Post Meta. Click the  ⋮  menu next to it and select Edit. This will open the Editor for that block.

Now you’re inside the Editor. Click Author to select it, then press Shift + Alt + Z from your keyboard. Then, click Save in the top-right corner.

However, if you’re having trouble finding the block, click List View in the top-left corner. This gives you a clear view of all blocks on the page.

Find Author in the list, click the ⋮ menu next to it, and choose Delete.

You may also wish to remove extra text, like the word by, if your layout shows something like Published on [Date] – by [Author]. Just delete any leftover words around the author block. Once you’re done, click Save at the top to publish your changes.

Now, if you visit any post or page using that layout, you’ll see that the author’s name is gone. Here’s how it appears before and after editing Post Meta:

This method works well for themes built with the Block Editor, and it doesn’t require any extra plugins or code changes.

FAQS

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