WP Authors First

Changes WordPress’ default permalink structure, moving authors to the site root. This enables the following:

Author Page:

.com/{author-name}/

Post Permalink:

.com/{author-name}/{year}/{month}/{slug}/

However, WordPress very much wants to place author pages behind some kind of flag (i.e. .com/author/{author-name}/). Overriding this behavior involves more dramatic changes to the WP->parse_request() process.

WP Authors First solves this problem, and handles a range of concerns related to making a dramatic permalink change of this kind:

• We expect to change an existing permalink structure; meaning, we provide 301 redirection from the previous permalinks to the new. This applies to posts and author pages.
• Caching is sprinkled throughout to minimize database calls.
• Works with the popular Co-Authors Plus plugin.
• Was originally built for a site running on WordPress VIP, the same grid that powers wordpress.com, and was deployed on a site with ~100m monthly pageviews.

What’s Included

• This plugin is a work in progress. It was written for a specific permalink structure and may need modifications before use.
• WP Authors First currently depends on Co-Authors Plus.
• A new rewrite tag %__coauthor% is created for use in permalink structure. The rewrite tag is replaced with a guest author user_nicename.
• For performance, the use of an object cache is encouraged.
• WP Authors First may be installed using Composer.

Credits

WP Authors First is an Athletics and Thought & Expression collaboration. The code was originally developed to support the permalink structure found on Thought Catalog. Many thanks to the WordPress VIP team for assistance in developing, reviewing and deploying this project.