Secure Your Website: How to Change Your WordPress Admin Login URL

Published on May 10, 2023 by Simon Wright

WordPress is one of the most popular and versatile platforms for creating websites today. With its user-friendly interface and robust features, the platform makes it easy for anyone to build and manage a website. However, with popularity comes vulnerability, and WordPress sites are no exception. One vulnerable area website owners need to be aware of is the WordPress admin login URL. By default, this is the same for every site, making it an easy target for hackers.

This article will examine the importance of securing your WordPress admin login URL, explain how to protect your website from malicious attacks, and recover things if you get locked out.

What is the WordPress Admin Login URL?

The WordPress admin login URL is the web address used to access the WordPress administrator dashboard, where website owners can manage their site’s content, settings, and other features.

By default, WordPress allocates the admin login URL as “yourwebsitename.com/wp-admin.” Unfortunately, the “wp-admin” suffix to this URL is the same for every WordPress site, making it an easy target for hackers who use robots and other shady tactics to try to log in to yours.

Why is the WordPress Admin Login URL Important?

The WordPress admin login URL is critical for website security. As mentioned above, the default login URL is the same for every WordPress site, making it an easy target for hackers. Malicious actors often use automated tools such as robots to try and guess login credentials and gain access to the site’s dashboard. These are known as brute-force attacks, and if successful, the fallout can range from mildly inconvenient to downright devastating.

Having a unique and secure login URL can help prevent such attacks. Changing the default login URL makes it more difficult for hackers to find it and attempt to log in. This provides another layer of security to your site, making it less vulnerable.

It’s important to note that changing the login URL alone is insufficient to secure your site fully. You should also:

  • use strong passwords,
  • keep the core WordPress, theme, and plugins updated, and
  • use quality security plugins to help protect it.

Moreover, secure, reliable hosting, such as that from WP Lift, is essential. WP Lift uses virtual private servers (VPS), meaning you have dedicated server space and resources, thereby reducing the risk of attacks from neighboring sites.

In addition to preventing brute-force attacks, using a unique login URL can also help protect your site from other types of attacks, such as phishing. Phishing attacks are when a hacker creates fake login pages that look identical to real ones and tries to trick users into entering their login credentials on the false page. Using a unique login URL can make it more difficult for hackers to create a convincing phishing login page.

Overall, the WordPress admin login URL is critical to website security. Therefore, a unique and secure login URL can help prevent brute force and other attacks, making your site less vulnerable to malicious activity.

How to Find the WordPress Login URL

Getting to your WordPress login screen is simple. After installing WordPress for the first time, all you need to do is add /admin/ or /login/ or /wp-login.php to your website URL, for example:

  • www. yourwebsitename.com/admin/
  • www. yourwebsitename.com/login/
  • www. yourwebsitename.com/wp-login.php

If you have installed your WordPress installation on a subdirectory of your domain, you will need to add one of the suffixes as mentioned above to the subdirectory or subdomain, e.g.:

  • www. yourwebsitename.com/subdomainname/admin/
  • www. yourwebsitename.com/subdomainname/login/
  • www. yourwebsitename.com/subdomainname/wp-login.php

It’s a good idea to bookmark your site’s WordPress admin login URL so that you don’t forget it and to make it easy to access in the future. Moreover, checking the “Remember Me” option on the login screen will keep you logged in as an administrator on your website, thereby avoiding the need to log in each time your return to it.

Benefits of Changing Your WordPress Admin Login URL

Changing your WordPress admin login URL offers several benefits for your website’s security. Here are a few of the most significant benefits:

1. Improved Security

As already mentioned, using a unique, secure login URL on your website will make it much more difficult for hackers to find your login page and target your site. This will go a long way toward preventing brute-force attacks and other malicious activities that can compromise your website’s security. It also helps prevent phishing scammers from trying to mimic your site.

2. Protection Against Malware

Changing your WordPress admin login URL can also help protect your site from malware. Malware can infect your site through vulnerabilities in your WordPress installation, including the login page. Changing your login URL can make it more difficult for malware to find and exploit these vulnerabilities.

Change Your WordPress Admin Login URL in 3 Simple Steps

Changing the WordPress admin login URL can improve website security by making it more difficult for hackers to find and attempt to log in.

As with most things on WordPress, the best way to do this is using a plugin. Several are available, and one that stands out is WPS Hide Login. This plugin is easy to use and has over 1 million active installs, making it a popular and reliable option.

Here are the steps you need to follow to use WPS Hide Login to change the WordPress admin login URL on your site:

Step 1: Install the WPS Hide Login Plugin

To install the plugin, log in to your WordPress dashboard, and from the left-hand menu, navigate to “Add New” under “Plugins.” Then, using the search bar, find the “WPS Hide Login” plugin and click the “Install Now” button.

After installing the plugin, click “Activate.”

Step 2: Change the Login URL

Once the plugin is activated, you can change the WordPress admin login URL by navigating to “WPS Hide Login” under “Settings” in the left-hand menu. You will then see a panel titled “WPS Hide Login” (you may need to scroll down the page to see it.) This panel contains a field labeled “Login url,” where you will enter your new login URL:

We recommend using a unique and secure login URL that is difficult for hackers to guess. A complex combination of letters, numbers and special characters is preferable. For example, instead of using yourdomain.com/wp-admin, you could use something like yourdomain.com/my-top-secret-login-url.

Once you’ve entered the new login URL, hit “Save Changes” to save and implement it.

Step 3: Log In Using the New Login URL

Your new admin login URL will now be in effect, and you must use it from now on to access your WordPress admin panel.

Further Ways to Secure Your WordPress Admin Panel

There are other ways you can secure your WordPress admin panel. Here are a few suggestions:

1) Change the WordPress Admin Login URL by Editing the .htaccess File

Changing the admin login URL on your WordPress site is possible by editing the .htaccess file. Generally, this is accessed using cPanel and is used to configure rules and system settings. However, not all hosting companies offer cPanel, and if yours doesn’t, you may need to contact their support team to find out how to access your site’s .htaccess file.

To password-protect your login page, it is necessary to edit the .htaccess file for that page using a .htpasswd. This tool generates and modifies flat files that store user credentials for basic authentication of HTTP users. Doing so will require anyone landing on your login page to enter a password to access it.

We don’t recommend this method for people not confident with altering their site’s database.

2) Restrict Access to Trusted IP Addresses

Alternatively, you can restrict access to the login page to a list of trusted IP addresses. However, this method of securing your WordPress login page also requires some technical knowledge. Therefore, we recommend using a plugin to change your admin login URL unless you are an advanced WordPress user.

3) Limit the Number of Login Attempts

Another way to secure your WordPress admin panel is to limit the number of times someone can attempt to log in. A plugin like All-in-One Security or Limit Login Attempts Reloaded makes this easy.

With such plugins, you can configure the number of login attempts permitted before the user is locked out. Moreover, they also include other features to help keep your site safe and secure, such as forced logouts to prevent users from staying logged in, firewalls, spam protection, etc.

Unable to Gain Access Using Your WordPress Admin Login URL?

If you are unfortunate enough to encounter issues accessing your WordPress admin panel through the login URL, there are several things you can try, including:

1) Use the WordPress “Lost Your Password” Function

If you are sure you have entered the login credentials correctly, you can try changing your password using the “Lost your password?” link on the login screen. When you click on it, you’ll see a form requesting the username or email address you set up during the site’s creation. Once that is entered, you will receive a new password via email.

2) Enable Cookies in Your Browser

Sometimes, you might receive the following message when attempting to log in to your WordPress admin panel:

How you enable cookies depends on the browser you are using. You can find links to instructions for each in the WordPress Codex.

3) Manually Reset WordPress Password with phpMyAdmin

It is possible to manually reset your WordPress password by editing the password file in your WordPress database. However, we strongly advise against this unless you are happy working with database files, and before attempting to do it, you should make a backup of your site.

You will need to access your database to do a manual password reset. This is done from your web hosting account using the phpMyAdmin option.

Step 1: Log In to Your Host Dashboard and Locate the phpMyAdmin Option

Log into your hosting account and find the “phpMyAdmin.” The location of this varies depending on the hosting provider you use, so you may need to contact them for guidance on where to find it. On WP Bolt, this can be found under the Advanced tab for the server in your client area – or you can just ask our 24×7 technical support team to reset the password of a WordPress user for you.

Step 3: Enter the New Password

In the “user_pass” row, type the new password into the empty field. Then, from the “Function” drop-down menu, choose “MD5” and finally hit “Go” to save the new password.

From now on, that user will need to use the new password to access your website’s admin panel. Please note that the password is case-sensitive.

Conclusion

Your WordPress admin login URL is an essential component of your website’s security. Unfortunately, the default login URL is the same for every WordPress site, making it an easy target for hackers. By changing your WordPress admin login URL to something more unique, you can improve your website’s security and protect it from brute-force attacks, phishing scams, and other malicious activities. While manually changing the URL needs some technical knowledge and is not recommended for novice WordPress users, there are great plugins like WPS Hide Login that make the process super easy. Either way, the benefits are well worth the effort.

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