Basic authors

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Basic authors

Last updated April 10, 2026 21:10

Invite guest content creators to your site.

A basic author is any name that can be attributed as an author for your site's content but doesn't have login information.

Unlike contributors, basic authors don't have an account for your site. Basic authors appear in a dropdown menu you can select from when adding or editing content. This makes basic authors a great option if you have guest bloggers or attribute content to a general source like a company name.

Tip: You can add as many basic authors as you want. Basic authors don't count toward contributor limits by plan.

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Before you begin

  • Only the owner and administrators can add basic authors.
  • Basic authors can only be added to websites. It's not possible to add basic authors to Squarespace domains on parking pages or Acuity Scheduling subscriptions without a website.

Add a basic author

To add a basic author:

  1. Open the Permissions & Ownership panel.
  2. Click Add Basic Author.
  3. Under Author Image, upload a profile picture for the author image.
  4. Under Display Name, add the author's name as you want it to display on the site. If you're using basic authors to attribute content to general sources like your company name, enter that name here.
  5. Under Profile, you can add a first name, last name, and website address.
  6. Under Bio, you can add a short biography for the author.
  7. Click Save to add the author.

Note: Author images, profile information, and bio text only display on sites that support author profiles.

Add multiple authors

There's not a built-in way to add multiple individual authors when creating content. Instead, to credit multiple authors on blog posts or other collection items, follow the steps above to create a single basic author and add all the author names to the Display Name field. For example, it might look like “Author One and Author Two.”

Where you can use a basic author

Basic authors can be used on any page where authorship is attributed to content. This includes:

Change the author in the Content tab of the above collection item editors.

  • Album page tracks
  • Blog posts
  • Events
  • Gallery page images

Change the author in the Optionstab of the above collection item editors.

Basic authors also display in archive and summary blocks.

Edit a basic author profile

Unlike contributor profiles that can only be edited by the contributors themselves, only owners and administrators can edit a basic author's profile. To edit a profile:

  1. Open the Permissions & Ownership panel.
  2. Click on the basic author's name.
  3. Edit any of the profile options, then click Save.

Remove a basic author

To remove a basic author:

  • Computer

  • Squarespace app

  • Open the Permissions & Ownership panel.

  • Click on the basic author's name.
  • Click Remove Author.
  • In the window that appears, select a new author that will replace this author from the dropdown menu. This ensures that all content attributed to this author (such as blog posts) has a new author listed in their place.

  • Click Continue, then click Remove to confirm.

  • Tap More, tap Settings, then tap Permissions.

  • Tap the basic author's name.
  • Tap Remove Author.
  • On the screen that appears, select a new author that will replace this author from the dropdown menu. This ensures that all content attributed to this author (such as blog posts) has a new author listed in their place.
  • TapRemove, then click Confirm.
  • Tap Back to return to Permissions.

Basic Author Benefits

You can use basic authors to add different perspectives to your blog or hide author details.

Invite a guest blogger to write a post and create a basic author profile for them. As a basic author, the guest blogger doesn’t need access to edit your site. Their posts will appear authored by them. You can use the basic author profile to include the guest blogger’s bio, image, and a link to their site.

Write some or all of your blog posts using a generic author profile. This hides your name and contributor details from the post. For example, if your blog is titled “I Heart Tarot,” your generic author profile could be the blog title, “I Heart Tarot,” or something related to it like, “The Fool.”

For sponsored posts, you can use basic authors to reflect the brand you’re promoting. Instead of your name, the blog post displays the brand name as the author, or some combination of their brand and your blog.

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Basic authors