Question by Kamat Singh: Subscribers to wordpress blog?
So i had purchased a blog created using wordpress some time ago. Due to other work, the blog was kept on the backburner. Now i am finally hoping to re-develop the blog but i found that there have been over 400 subscribers to the blog with one of the user subscribing it over 300 times (i am assuming in some sort of blackhat link building method). When i checked my site on google i found that my search results have been populated with links to these “author” pages (no..they have not been able to write anything as i believe i had earlier discontinued it)

I have a couple of simple questions….what are these subscribers? Should i delete them through the Users dashboard? And is there any way i can prevent them from becoming “authors” again?

p.s: My site does not have a front end login/register option/widget though it has a subscribe by RSS and subscribe by email options

Best answer:

Answer by edsilva7
First of all check if these users appear under your dashboard. Once you login go to “Users” and if you see these users listed there you can either contact them or delete them, you can also see their roles. IMPORTANT. On this page check under “Posts” to see if these user have created any posts at all, if so you might want to see what they did post and most likely you need to delete all that content. An “author” cannot modify the content others created including the ones you created, but try to see any other content or plugins that you didn’t install to avoid any future risks.

Most likely you need to change the registration settings to avoid people to register themselves. Go to “Settings” and look for “Membership” then unchecked “anyone can register” or in case you want to let people register without being “authors” just select the “new user default role” to “Subscriber” where they won’t be able to add content to your site.

Even if you don’t have a login/register option on your blog, anyone who add the following to your site’s domain name will be able to register if you have that option available: mysite.com/wp-admin

You might want to consider a premium plugin called Magic Members that give you total control of members and you can even customize their roles and have both free and paid subscribers and much more.

Take a look of that plugin and others that I found very helpful at http://www.premiumdesignstudio.com/we-recommend/

Also you might want to consider backing up your site at least once a month so if your site is ever hacked you can restore it. The best backup plugin option out there is http://ithemes.com/member/go.php?r=16913&i=l44

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