After changing the author path in WP Ghost, users may not be able to access their author pages or profile URLs because the old /author/username/ path no longer works.

Old author URLs return 404

WP Ghost replaces the /author/ path with your custom path. The old URLs stop working immediately. Bookmarks, links from other sites, and saved URLs pointing to /author/username/ will return a 404 error. Users need to update their bookmarks to use the new path (for example, yourdomain.com/writer/username/ if you set the author path to writer).

Notify your contributors

Let contributors, editors, and other users know the author path has changed. Share the new URL format so they can update their bookmarks and any external profiles that link to their author pages.

Check internal links

WordPress automatically updates author archive links in menus and widgets, but hardcoded author links in post content, custom templates, or third-party plugins may still point to the old path. Search your site for /author/ references and update them to the new path. WP Ghost’s Text Mapping can also handle this replacement automatically in HTML output.

Clear cache after the change

If author pages still show the old path or return errors, clear your cache plugin and CDN cache. Cached pages may still reference the old author URLs until the cache is regenerated.

If you’ve lost access to the admin dashboard, see the emergency disable guide.