Add a Checkbox to Enable/Disable Author Page Indexing in WordPress Core Setting

[mahdiali]

Currently, WordPress does not provide a built-in option to control the indexing of Author pages. Many users prefer not to index developer or site designer names.

Feature Request:

• Add a checkbox under "Settings > Reading" (or "Users > Profile") to enable or disable indexing of Author archive pages.
• Default should be "Indexed" (checked), but users can disable indexing if needed.
• This will prevent the need for custom code or SEO plugins.

This feature will help users control author page indexing without relying on third-party SEO plugins.

[audrasjb]

Hello, welcome to WordPress Core Trac and thank you for opening this ticket,

I think this proposal will get more or less the same answer than in ticket #57520.

If we add an option for author pages, why shouldn't we add an option for other pages as well?
This is indeed plugin's territory as WordPress already provides hooks to manage this option.

Here is an interesting read about WordPress Core' philosophy:

### Decisions, not options
When making decisions these are the users we consider first. A great example of this consideration is software options. Every time you give a user an option, you are asking them to make a decision. When a user doesn’t care or understand the option this ultimately leads to frustration. As developers we sometimes feel that providing options for everything is a good thing, you can never have too many choices, right? Ultimately these choices end up being technical ones, choices that the average end user has no interest in. It’s our duty as developers to make smart design decisions and avoid putting the weight of technical choices on our end users.

Source: ​https://wordpress.org/about/philosophy/