Zinn® SEO how-to: Set up author pages for search

Set up author pages for search

Give each author's page its own search title, description and sharing card, send a departed author's page elsewhere, and keep author pages you do not want out of search and out of the sitemap.

1. Set the template for author pages — Go to SEO, Search appearance. Under Other pages, open Author archives to set the title and description template every author page uses, and whether author pages are shown in search at all.
2. Open a person's profile — Go to Users and open a person. The section This author's page in search results is near the end of their profile.
3. Write their own title and description — Fill in a field to use your own words for this person. Leave it empty and the template from Search appearance is used.
4. Choose how it looks when shared — Under Title when shared, Text when shared and Image when shared, choose what Facebook, LinkedIn and X show when someone shares this author's page. Leave them empty to use the SEO title, the description and the site's default image. Add their TikTok, X and Facebook accounts in the Contact Info section, so search engines know which profiles are theirs.
5. Hide or redirect the page — Tick Hide from search results to keep the page out of Google; it also leaves the sitemap. For an author who has left, an administrator can fill in Redirect this page (301): visitors and search engines go to the new address, and the page leaves the sitemap. Authors with no published posts are never in the sitemap.
6. Save the profile — Press Update Profile. The author's page shows the new title and description straight away. Back on the Users list, the column Author page in search shows for each person whether their page is in search, hidden or redirected, and whether it has its own title and description.

With a screenshot of every step: https://zinnseo.com/kb/set-up-author-pages