How to remove author base in WordPress

Question

Standard author links in WordPress look like: example.com/author/johnsmith

I'd like to remove the author/ part of the URL so the username is in the root. For example: example.com/johnsmith

I control page creation on my site so there will be no chance of a conflict in page and author name.

So far I've tried the following solution from WP Snippet but this no longer seems to work:

add_filter('author_rewrite_rules', 'no_author_base_rewrite_rules');
function no_author_base_rewrite_rules($author_rewrite) {
    global $wpdb;
    $author_rewrite = array();
    $authors = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT user_nicename AS nicename from $wpdb->users");   
    foreach($authors as $author) {
        $author_rewrite["({$author->nicename})/page/?([0-9]+)/?$"] = 'index.php?author_name=$matches[1]&paged=$matches[2]';
        $author_rewrite["({$author->nicename})/?$"] = 'index.php?author_name=$matches[1]';
    }  
    return $author_rewrite;
}


add_filter('author_link', 'no_author_base', 1000, 2);
function no_author_base($link, $author_id) {
    $link_base = trailingslashit(get_option('home'));
    $link = preg_replace("|^{$link_base}author/|", '', $link);
    return $link_base . $link;
}

Do anyone know if there is a working solution to this?

Answer 1

I've tested this combined solution but wasn't working before regenerating of permalinks. You can do it, as brasfolio described : simply clicking save on permalink page in dashboard.

add_filter('author_rewrite_rules', 'no_author_base_rewrite_rules');
function no_author_base_rewrite_rules($author_rewrite) {
   global $wpdb;
   $author_rewrite = array();
   $authors = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT user_nicename AS nicename from $wpdb->users");   
   foreach($authors as $author) {
       $author_rewrite["({$author->nicename})/page/?([0-9]+)/?$"] = 'index.php?author_name=$matches[1]&paged=$matches[2]';
       $author_rewrite["({$author->nicename})/?$"] = 'index.php?author_name=$matches[1]';
   }  
   return $author_rewrite;
}

if( !is_admin() ) {
add_action('init', 'author_rewrite_so_22115103');
}

function author_rewrite_so_22115103() {
   global $wp_rewrite; 
   if( 'author' == $wp_rewrite->author_base ) $wp_rewrite->author_base = null;
}

Answer 2

Your code appears fine. Manually flush your permalink structure to reflect these changes.

1)  Settings -> Permalinks -> choose default -> Save
2)  Revert the settings to original.