Name Redactor

3 of WordPress.

The Name Redactor is a WordPress plugin which allows WordPress users to

hide personal data from search engines. As the name of the plugin implies,

the type of content we are talking about in this context are personal

names. The plugin works by checking whether the visitor to the site is

human or a search engine robot. If the visitor is a search engine robot,

the plugin will redact any personal names before delivering the content,

replacing them with the text [redacted]. To human visitors, the names

will appear as normal.

Purpose of the Name Redactor

The web is full of personal names, which is usually attached to some

g. ). If these personal names

are indexed by search engines, along with the contextual

data attached to them, both will be discoverable by anyone searching for a

specific name. While some such discoveries may be beneficial to the

subject, others may be harmful. The purpose of the Name Redactor is not to

block search engines from accessing your WordPress site or indexing your

content. The purpose is to avoid having personal names being indexed along

with contextual data attached to those names.

Features:

• Manually tag names to be redacted in pages, posts and comments by using

the ‘Redact’ button in the Text Editor.

• Automatically redact names in pages, posts and comments, using a simple

set of rules.

• Create an opt in list of names that should always be redacted,

regardless of any automatic name detection.

• Create an opt out list of names that should not be redacted

automatically.

Detailed description

The Name Redactor plugin works by detecting if a visitor to the site is a

search engine robot, and if so, the plugin will redact any personal names

(which have been tagged with <redact content="name"></redact> ) before

delivering the content, replacing them with the text [redacted].

The tagging can either be done manually by the publisher, or automatically

by the program.

Manually tag names

When you install the plugin for the first time, it is set by default to

only redact names that have been manually tagged. If you go to add a new

post, page, or comment (or edit already existing content) and select the

Text Editor, you will see that a new button has been added to the

pre-existing ones. This button, labeled redact, allows you to tag a

name in the text. Simply select the name you want to tag, and press the

redact button. Alternatively, place the cursor before a name, press the

redact button to add the name redact tag, place the cursor after the name,

and press the redact button again to close the tag. Note that these tags

will only be visible in the page source of the website. Before publishing

something, you can view the text from a bot’s point of view by pressing

the ‘Preview’ button (note that you first need to select this option from

the plugin settings menu).

Also note that when uninstalling the plugin, any manually tagged names

will remain tagged. If you want to remove the tags, you will have to

remove them manually as well, by going back and editing the content.

Automatic name detection

You can also set the plugin to automatically try to detect personal names,

and redact them accordingly. This automatic name detection is accomplished

by using a simple set of rules, written as regular expressions:

1. It will match a single word with the first letter capitalized, as long

as that word is not at the beginning of the sentence.

2. It will match two or more consecutive words starting with the first

letter capitalized, as long as the first word is not at the beginning

of the sentence.

Names that have been tagged manually will continue to be tagged until the

tags are manually removed (so if you at a later date should wish to remove

tags from a name, you will have to go back and edit the post, comment or

page in question). Automatic tagging is done on the spot whenever the

content is requested by a search engine bot. This means that the content

in the database is left unchanged, and no tags are saved along with the

text.

Detecting whether or not a visitor to the site is a web crawler, is done

by checking the “User-Agent” header of the client software originating the

request (see the

Wikipedia page for

more information on this). Whenever a visitor requests to view the content,

be it a page, comment, or post, the plugin will check the user-agent

string up against a list containing a set of known search engine bot

names. If the User-Agent matches a name in the list, the plugin will

redact any tagged content before returning it to the bot. Upon

installation, the plugin will add a default set of bot names to the list.

The user can then freely add or delete names to or from the list.

Note that while the plugin is primarily meant as a way of preventing

search engines from indexing personal names, it can, in theory, also be

used to prevent disclosure of other types of personal data, by manually

tagging it in the same manner as you would do names.

Plugin settings

You can change the settings for the plugin in the ‘Name Redactor Settings’

sub menu, located in the ‘Tools’ menu in the admin panel. The Name

Redactor settings menu is organized into three different options pages,

with tabs to make navigation easier. The option pages are organized as

follows: Options, Opt-in/opt-out, and Bots.

• The Options page allows you to change all the different settings of the

plugin, like which redact-mode to use. Each setting is accompanied by an

explanation of what it does.

• The Opt-in/opt-out page allows you to create a list of names that should

always be redacted, regardless of any automatic name detection, or names

that should not be redacted automatically. Each name in the list is

accompanied by an opt-in or opt-out status. Names that are opt-in will be

tagged automatically, while names that are opt-out will not. You can add

or remove names to/from the list, as well as change the opt-in/opt-out

status of each name in the list at any time.

• The Bots page displays a list of search engine bot names. Whenever

someone visits the site, the plugin will check the visitor (or rather,

its user agent) up against this list, and if the visitor matches a name

in the list (which means the visitor is a search engine bot), personal

names that have been tagged will be redacted before the content is

returned to the bot. For example, the search engine bot from Google is

named Googlebot. So by adding the name Googlebot to the list, you avoid

personal names (that have been tagged for redaction) being indexed by

Google. The plugin comes with a default set of bot names, and you can

add or remove names at any time.

Credit

The original idea for this plugin comes from Gisle Hannemyr

php.

Uninstallation

• If you want the plugin to remove all tables and options associated with

the plugin upon deactivation, you can choose this in the Name Redactor

Settings sub menu, located in the ‘Tools’ menu in the admin panel.

• Deactivate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.

• If you want to completely remove the plugin, click ‘Delete’ next to the

plugin name in the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress, or delete the folder named

‘name-redactor’ in the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory. Clicking ‘Delete’

in the ‘Plugins’ menu ensures that all tables and options associated with

the plugin are removed as well.

• Note that when uninstalling the plugin, any manually tagged names

will remain tagged. If you want to remove the tags, you will have to

remove them manually as well, by going back and editing the content.