So you’ve done it – you’ve decided to start a WordPress blog, or maybe you’ve determined that WordPress is the ideal content management system (CMS) for your website. If you went through the installation process, you’re doing great!
After all, about 35% of WordPress websites are the most popular WordPress CMS, outperforming competitors such as Drupal and Joomla.
The WordPress installation process comes in a variety of ways. Many hosting providers offer automatic WordPress installations as part of their built-in features. This will allow you to create a new WordPress installation with the click of a button.
Alternatively, you can install WordPress manually. This includes downloading the source archive and using an FTP client to upload the contained files to your web server.
Whichever way you choose to install WordPress, you will need to set up a default admin username and password. After that, you may end up in a little brine. Some hosting providers will redirect you directly to your WordPress admin username, while others will not.
Either way, you need to know how to access your admin login in the future. Let’s talk about how to do this.
– /
If you’re already logged in: Use the admin bar
In most cases, you will already be logged into your WordPress admin account after you set up your new WordPress blog. This means you don’t have to search for the WordPress admin login page, you just need to find how to access the admin backend in general. However, in WordPress, they are synonymous as both are available from the same page.
The easiest way to access the admin area of ??your WordPress site is to navigate to your site’s URL through your browser. At the top of the page, if you are logged in, you will see a gray bar – the admin panel.
To access the administrative backend, all you have to do is click on your website name in this panel, which can be located directly to the right of the WordPress logo. In this example, it will be “Technical Tips on the Internet”.
Since you can only see the admin panel if you are already logged in, you will be taken to the admin panel immediately. This is where you can make all the administrative changes to your WordPress site.
If you are not logged in: via URL
If you’re not signed in, finding the admin backend can be a little tricky. Some WordPress themes contain a link to enter the footer, but not all of them include it. However, we can access the admin backend in a slightly tricky way by checking the default URLs.
- Default Admin URL: http://yourwordpressdomain.com/wp-admin/
- Default Login URL: http: // yourwordpressdomain. com / wp-login.php
Any of these pages will do. If you are an administrator, a simple WordPress login page will redirect you to the admin panel.
Knowing the default WordPress admin login url for WordPress is as bad as it is good. This means that malicious users who might want to hack or hijack your WordPress server have an advantage too.
Protecting Login Pages
Secure your login pages
Using the default WordPress login URLs, or worse, the default WordPress login credentials named “admin”, poses a security risk. This will be the entry point for hackers who will do their best to sabotage your WordPress site.
However, you cannot simply rename the “wp-admin” directory and the “wp-login.php” file. This will completely break your WordPress installation.
Currently, the best way to achieve this is to use the WPS Hide Login plugin. Please be aware that this is a third party plugin and is not officially supported by WordPress. However, it has over 500,000 active installations and is very easy to install.
You can either download the plugin as an archive directly from the WordPress Plugin site, or go to the Add New page in the admin panel, which is located under the Plugin menu.
If you choose the second method, which we recommend as it is much easier, you will need to search for the plugin by name.
Once you find it, click the Install Now button. When finished, this button will change to Activate, which you must also click. You will be taken to the plugins page, where you will need to scroll down and click the “Settings” link under the “Hide WPS Login” line.
Here you can change the default WordPress login URL, which will apply to both the login page and the admin directory. WPS Hide Login even lets you redirect users to a custom page if they try to access that URL, which can help you do things like register their IP addresses if needed.
Plus, you can even explore password protected WordPress pages.
Finding the admin account and WordPress dashboard can be confusing for a new user, but once you figure it out, it’s very easy to remember.
Do you know of any alternative ways to find your WordPress admin login? Leave a comment below and let us know!
–