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Byline

by mattdu · Uncategorized

Solves the co/multi-author problem without modifying the theme. Uses a custom taxonomy, "Byline," that replaces the Display Author.

⚠ Stale⚠ Likely abandoned⚠ Few reviews
How scoring works →
47 Health · D
Maintenance 3/100
Rating quality 81/100
Support 70/100

47 health vs 56 average across 16,375 Uncategorized plugins

High removal-risk signals

63/100

Maintenance and integrity signals that tend to precede a WordPress.org removal. Not an official status, a heads-up to act.

  • Long abandoned. No update in 13+ years — the top precursor to removal once a vulnerability is found.
  • Compatibility drift. Tested only up to WordPress 3.5.2, well behind 6.8.

Directory ranking optimization

How it's scored →

How well this listing is tuned to rank in WordPress.org search, on the factors an owner controls. Not popularity, optimization.

37 / 100

Under-optimized

Biggest win: Update recency

Update recency 0/100
WP compatibility 2/100
Rating quality 57/100
Listing tuning 100/100

To rank higher: Last updated 4921 days ago — ship an update; wp.org decays a listing's search weight after ~180 days.

Get the full rank-higher report →

Daily downloads

Since 2022-10-05 · 1,426 days · wp.org + Plugin Pulse archive

+24% vs prior 30d
1Downloads · Aug 26

30-day downloads

Rolling 30-day volume · peaks are release surges

63

now · peak 165

6330d downloads · Aug 26

Directory rank vs rivals

wp.org popularity rank over time · higher is better · when a rival's line climbs above yours, they've overtaken you

Byline · #12611 you Extend Co-Authors Pl · #44368 Co-Authors Plus · #1204 SP Authors · #32957

Update activity

How busy the existing users are, measured as downloads in the last 30 days for every 1,000 active sites. A spike means a new release everyone's pulling; a long, slow decline means an aging user base that updates less.

315per 1k installs · Aug 26

Release cadence

No release in a year
from wp.org release tags

How often this plugin actually ships. A steady rhythm is the maintenance signal a single "last updated" date can't show.

0

releases in the last 12 months

13.5y ago

latest release · v0.25

2

tagged releases on record

Recent releases

0.25 · 13.5y ago0.2 · 13.6y ago

What its installed base runs

via wordpress.org

Share of active installs on each version of this plugin · 100% run the current release. Green is the current release; a big slice on older versions is a user base that has stopped updating.

v0.25 100%

Estimated active installs

The public count shows “200+”. Our estimate pins where the real number sits.

tracked estimate
200–300 ≈290

Refined from the date this plugin crossed into its current band.

Install history · since 2022-10-04 · 1,382 observations

200Installs · Aug 26

Estimated value

What this plugin might earn a year, and what it might sell for. Modeled from public signals; we don't see anyone's books.

Est. annual revenue

N/A

Est. acquisition value

N/A

No paid tier is visible, so we don't put a figure on revenue or sale value: that would be guessing. The install base is a real asset to an acquirer, just not one public data lets us price. A small install base leaves thin data to model from.

Details

Version
0.25
Last updated
13.5y ago
Added
2012-12-30 · 13 yrs old
Requires WP
3.0.1
Tested up to
3.5.2
Requires PHP

Recent reviews

All reviews on wp.org ↗
  1. Adebowale Adekoya
    7.5y ago

    The Byline plugin is simple and suitable for multi-author WordPress sites.

    Read on wp.org ↗
  2. televizor
    11.8y ago

    Nice work

    Read on wp.org ↗
  3. dsolimini
    12.4y ago

    After spending too many hours trying to implement a complicated competitor plugin, I found this gem. It does exactly as claimed, does it straightforwardly and elegantly, and does not require PHP knowledge. \ In addition: I had a question, posted it to the support forum, and had a working resolution in less than an hour.

    Read on wp.org ↗
  4. Dan Knauss
    12.5y ago

    If you have a lot of contributing authors whose posts you want to be able to credit and list in archives, but you don’t need or can’t afford the time it takes to to create separate user accounts for them all, then you need this plugin. It will also handle the problem posed by multiple authors/co-authors. By separating bylines from the author/user who created/owns the post, this is the first simple solution to a longstanding problem for multi-author WordPress sites. You simply add any number of author names to a “Bylines” taxonomy (like tags), and they will be automatically linked to their own taxonomy archive page whose description can be used for a short author bio, and the Taxonomy Images plugin can be used to assign them photos. Byline is much simpler than implementing Co-Authors Plus, which is often more solution than you need and still requires creating user accounts for authors if you want to link bylines to author pages. The main comparable alternative to Byline is Custom Author Bylines. Unfortunately Custom Author Bylines is buggy, harder to implement in some themes, and unsupported.

    Read on wp.org ↗
  5. aendrew
    12.7y ago

    This solves the multiple author problem in a fashion that totally makes sense for newspapers. You usually have production staff — who aren’t the authors — assigning multiple authors to stories. I’ve felt this has been a huge gap in WordPress’s ability to serve mid- to large- periodicals. This plugin solves it in the most elegant way — an author taxonomy that is used to replace the built-in author display line. Not only does this remove the default WordPress thing where it displays as posted by the editor or admin user posting the content, but it also opens the way for creating rich author pages in the future — just add some taxonomy templates to your theme and you’re on your way. Seriously, I was considering writing this EXACT plugin, until I stumbled across this. Well done, sir. As a long-time journo-developer and WordPress user, I salute you.

    Read on wp.org ↗

Behavioral tests

via WP Hive

Automated install-time checks, tested on PHP 7.2.16 · WP 5.2.4

Low memory footprint
Low page-speed impact
Runs on latest PHP + WP
No PHP errors
No JS errors
Activates cleanly
No resource errors
No external HTTP errors
Optimized database use
Frequently updated

Growth timeline

Install-tier crossings we have observed, and how long each tier took to outgrow

  1. 2024-11-30 300+ → 200+ down after 589 days in tier
  2. 2023-04-21 400+ → 300+ down after 1 days in tier
  3. 2023-04-20 300+ → 400+ up after 15 days in tier
  4. 2023-04-05 400+ → 300+ down

Competes with

The plugins that solve the same job, ranked by shared tags then reach, closest match first. The letter on the right is each plugin's health grade (A best, F worst).

Compare head to head →

Embed this report card

Drop a live Pulse card for Byline into a readme, a review or a deck. It updates itself.

<iframe src="https://plugins.wpmayor.com/embed/byline" width="480" height="300" style="border:0" loading="lazy" title="Byline — Plugin Pulse"></iframe>
Preview card ↗

Byline: 200+ active installs, 5.0★ (5 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-08-31. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/byline