How to Hide the Author in WordPress in a Few Steps

Most WordPress content shows relevant metadata, including the publishing date and author’s name. At times, though, website owners need to know how to hide the author in WordPress.

This is especially so if they hire a ghostwriter for their blog. WordPress displays the author’s name by default, so users must know the strategies to change or remove it.

Each theme or plugin has a different way to hide the author in WordPress articles. Choose the one that best suits your needs.

In some cases, themes have built-in functions for the “hide the author” option. But if not, it’s possible to download a separate plugin for that purpose.

However, this can lead to issues with plugin or theme compatibilities.

What if a user deletes the theme with the built-in “hide the author” option? Then that option will no longer be available.

This article outlines three ways to hide or remove the author’s name in WordPress posts.

Reasons to Hide the Author in WordPress

Some may think that it is unnecessary to hide the author’s name since it adds to the content’s credibility.

The author’s name metadata is an essential part of WordPress. It helps the readers to learn more about the writer.

But there are reasons why hiding or removing the author’s name is beneficial.

These include:

1. Multiple Staff Members Collaborated on a Blog Post

If this is the case, then crediting a single person would be unfair to the whole team. You have to use a different strategy to put all authors below the title as contributors.

2. The Website Has Different Contributors and Freelance Writers

As the owner of a blog website, the goal is for readers to know that “you” are the one who’s writing. As the demand for articles grows, it may be necessary to hire freelancers or ghostwriters.

In time, a writer may stop contributing to the blog. This is less noticeable to readers if the author’s name is withheld in posts and articles.

3. The Article is Controversial

Authors may want to stay anonymous if the article’s topic is sensitive or controversial. This helps them to avoid risking their reputation or work.

At these times, having a “hide the author” option is helpful.

The following section explains how to hide the author in WordPress.

Solutions to Hide or Remove the Author’s Name from WordPress

Use Custom CSS

It’s not necessary to be a developer to use CSS in this instance. The following instructions can assist users to hide the author’s name.

This is one of the easiest methods. In this solution, the CSS will not remove the author’s name completely but will hide it on the website’s frontend.

This step works best in Google Chrome, using the following instructions. However, this method also works in other web browsers.

How to Use Custom CSS in Google Chrome to Hide Author’s Name:

Go to the live post you want to remove the author’s name from.
Search the author’s name displayed on that page, and right-click on that section.
Go to the Element’s tab. Find the author’s name and ‘By:’ label by hovering over various HTML elements. Look for the highlighted texts and elements.
Go to Appearance > Customize, located on the dashboard’s left menu area.

Select the “Additional CSS” tab.
To delete this element at any time, add the ‘display:none’ rule to the custom CSS code box.

You will see something like this:

<php>
.your-theme-name-post-info-author {

display: none;

}
</php>

When these codes appear, it means the author’s name is now hidden. Users can add comments about the codes to make troubleshooting easier in the future.

Don’t forget to organize and make the code snippets structured and less cluttered.

Use a Generic Name for All WordPress Posts

This solution does not completely remove the author’s name. But it removes the need to list the names of all the writers.

Using a generic name gives readers confidence in the writer. They feel that they are reading articles created by a single person.

Doing this also benefits the team. Site owners can create a generic or group name that represents all the writers.

This motivates everyone to work together as a team, rather than as an individual.

By maintaining a consistent writing style, readers will keep on coming and put their trust in you. Make sure to use the generic name for past and future articles too.

How to Replace the Author’s Name with a Generic Name on a Single Post

The steps to replace the author’s name with a generic one will depend on the page builder used. But the differences are only slight.

Gutenberg Page Builder

Open the relevant post to change the author’s name.
Navigate to the screen’s top-right section.
Select the Document tab, then click on the Status and Visibility section.
Look for the Author option, and click on the previous author’s name.
Press the Update button

Classic Editor or WPBakery Page Builder

Enable the Author section.
Go to the screen’s top right corner.
Next to the Author option, tick the checkbox.

Choose the replacement for the author’s name, then type it in the Nickname field.
In the “Display Name Publicly” option, select the chosen nickname.

Go to the Author section, click on “New Author”.
Go to the Publish section on the right, and select the “Update” button.

Check the post to make sure that the author is no longer the previous name. Readers will not know a specific author’s name, but they’ll know that it was written by a team.

How to Replace the Author’s Name in All Blogs or Articles

Select Add New to the Users section to create a new user. (A different approach to the previous steps for changing a single post’s author’s name.)

Add a generic name, like “editorialteam”.
Visit the Users section, go to the All Users page.

Below the new username, click on the “Edit” link.
Scroll down to the ‘Nickname’ option located on the user profile screen.
Enter the name you want to display.

Next to the ‘Display name publicly as’ option, click on the drop-down menu. Then click the chosen nickname.
Users can create a gravatar and generic bio for the new user account.

Go to the Posts > All Posts page, and click on the top screen options menu. Select 999 of the display’s number of items.

This enables users to change and customize the bulk number of posts or articles.

Using the checkbox, select all posts.
Under the bulk actions drop-down menu, select the ‘Edit’ section.
Select the ‘Apply’ button.

The Bulk editing options will appear.
Change the previous author’s name to the new generic name.
Select the ‘Update’ button.
WordPress will start to refresh and update all the posts with the new generic name of the author.

Note: If there are more than 999 posts, go to the next page and repeat the process presented above.

The processing time depends on the loading time of the WordPress hosting used. Try to visit your website, and see how it goes.

Use Code to Remove the Author Name

Before making changes to the code, make sure to backup the website whenever a problem occurs.

First, locate the code that shows the posts’ or articles’ author name. In the theme files, look for index.php files, archive.php, content.php, and single.php.

Having located the code, it’s necessary to delete it to make it disappear on the pages.

In some circumstances, it’s not possible to locate the author’s name in the current template. If that is the case, then find the codes in the template-tag.php or functions.php

For example, the name of the template is “Twenty Nineteen”. It uses the function “twentynineteen_posted_by” to present the author’s name.

Look at the template-tag.php, and the code should look like the following:

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;

In order to remove the author’s name, users have to delete the entire code. Or replace it with the following code:

function twentynineteen_posted_by() {

}

endif;

Don’t forget to upload the files to the server after making changes.

Ending thoughts on how to hide the author in WordPress

Many web owners need to know how to hide the author in WordPress for several reasons. This article showed that it’s possible to remove the author’s name completely or change it to a generic name.

The solutions will depend on user needs and preferences for presenting the author’s name. Those using coding can manually revert the code changes or use a backup to restore their web page.

It’s not necessary to switch back or change the code if you keep a generic name to address the author. In fact, it can improve the website’s credibility and reputation.

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