Managing Author and Date Archives for SEO

WordPress automatically creates two types of archive pages that many sites don’t actually need for SEO: author pages (all posts by one author) and date archives (posts grouped by month or year). SureRank lets you disable both.

Where to Find It

Go to SureRank → General → Archive Pages.

Author Pages

Setting: “Remove Author Pages & Redirect to Home”

Author archive pages list every post by a specific author. On single-author sites, this page is often a near-duplicate of the main blog listing, which can create duplicate content and confuse search engines about which page to rank.

• When turned on, visiting an author page (for example, example.com/author/john) redirects visitors to the homepage instead.
• When turned off, author pages work normally, and each author gets their own indexable archive page.
• On by default on new installs.

If you’re running a multi-author site where each author’s page has real value (for example, a magazine or multi-writer blog), turn this off so those pages stay accessible and indexable. If you’re a single-author site, leaving this on is usually the right call.

Date Archives

Setting: “Remove Date Archive Pages & Redirect to Home”

Date archives group posts by month or year (for example, example.com/2026/07). These pages rarely add value for visitors or search engines and are a common source of duplicate content.

• When turned on, visiting a date archive redirects to the homepage.
• When turned off, date archives work normally.
• On by default on new installs.

Most sites can safely leave this on unless there’s a specific reason visitors need to browse by date.

Steps to Check the Setting

1. Go to SureRank → Advanced → Archive Pages.
2. Decide whether author pages add value on this site (multi-author sites: usually keep them; single-author sites: usually remove them).
3. Toggle “Remove Author Pages & Redirect to Home” accordingly.
4. Do the same for “Remove Date Archive Pages & Redirect to Home”. Most sites leave this enabled.
5. Save changes and visit an author or date archive URL to confirm the expected behavior (redirect vs. normal page).

If That Doesn’t Work

If an author or date page isn’t redirecting after enabling the setting, check for page caching (clear it) and confirm no other plugin (a theme or another SEO plugin) is also controlling archive redirects.

If the conflict persists, escalate with the site URL and the specific archive URL that isn’t behaving as expected.