How to Nofollow and Open Author Bio Links in New Tab [WordPress]

Let’s discuss how nofollow link is different from dofollow, what are the significance and use of both.

Important: If you are looking for code to set nofollow link in author bio and to open it in a new tab, scroll down. Otherwise, let’s discuss some of the important points you should know before making any changes to your WordPress blog.

If you are making changes in your code without knowing the significance, it can impact your website SEO and so the traffic.

So go through the complete article.

Here are some important questions I would like to address about nofollow link.

Set Nofollow Link in Author Bio and Open it in New Tab [automatically]

If you are running a multi-author blog, its a very tedious job editing each author profile and making link nofollow.

What if we can add a couple of lines code to make the author link nofollow and that will make the change for links in all author bio?

Yes, we can automate that. It’s just one time job.

You need to change the content in the theme file author.php. If this file is not there check for single.php.

Most of the premium themes provide a separate PHP file for the author bio section called author.php. If it is not there, the author’s bio code can be found in the single.php.

Search for get_the_author_meta() and replace that line of code with the following code snippet.

Code to Set Author Bio Link as Nofollow

<?php
  $author_info = get_the_author_meta('description');
  $string = str_replace('href','rel="nofollow" href', $author_info);
  echo $string;
?>

Code to Open Author Bio Link in New Tab

Usually, links in the author bio are external links (link to other websites). And obviously no one likes if someone moves from your website to another website.

You can set all the links in the author bio to open in a new tab. Your article will be opened in another web browser tab when users click on the link.

You need to set target attribute to _blank to open the link in new tab.

<?php
  $author_info = get_the_author_meta('description');
  $string = str_replace('href','target="_blank" href', $author_info);
  echo $string;
?>

Code to Open Author Link in new Tab and set Nofollow

We can combine above code to open link in new tab and to set link as nofollow.

<?php
  $author_info = get_the_author_meta('description');
  $string = str_replace('href','rel="nofollow" 
    target="_blank" href', $author_info);
  echo $string;
?>

That’s it. Isn’t it simple?

This code is self-explanatory if you have even little knowledge of the coding. If you know the basic HTML code, it’s easy to understand.

If you are not from coding background, it is not necessary to understand to implement this. Just follow the steps I shared above.

We are making changes in the WordPress theme file. Even if you update WordPress to the new version, it does not impact our code. And it will still work.

But if you update your theme, your changes will be overwritten. The best practice is to create the child theme.

Conclusion

You learned about the difference between dofollow and nofillow, when you should use nofollow link and how to mark all author links as nofollow.

If you are accepting guest posts on your blog, it is good practice to set all the links in author bio as nofollow. It’s good for SEO.

If you have any questions or if you are not able to set nofollow link in author bio, let me know in the comment.

Aniruddha Chaudhari

I am a Python enthusiast who loves Linux and Vim. I hold a Master of Computer Science degree from NIT Trichy and have 10 years of experience in the IT industry, focusing on the Software Development Lifecycle from Requirements Gathering, Design, Development to Deployment. I have worked at IBM, Ericsson, and NetApp, and I share my knowledge on CSEstack.org.