If you are still using “admin” as your login username, STOP IT!

WordPress users often use the “admin” username by default to login because WordPress sets this up at the end of the installation. After all, there has to be at least one administrator at the beginning or you wouldn’t be able to access the backend of your site! But the “admin” username is the most common username used in brute-force hacker attacks exactly because it is widely known that many users don’t bother to change or remove it.

The following step-by-step process will show you how to get rid of “admin” and install a new username. This will help to ensure that you don’t lose any of your valuable content and will increase the security of your site.

Before you start, be sure you have the latest backup of your database.

This sounds like a redundant step, and WordPress is pretty good at protecting the database, but it is better to be safe than sorry. If you’re not sure when your database was last backed up, do a backup now.

OK, backup done, now login to the dashboard of your site.

To create a new user, go to the sidebar, find users and click on “add user”. You will see a screen like this. Now you can create a new username for yourself.

1. Use a different email than you used on your default username ( no two users can have the same email.If you only have one email, set one up for this purpose at gmail.com or any other free online service. You can always change it later.)
2. Choose a strong password. None of this pet name, 123456, drowssap, or other silly stuff.( try to make it at least 16 characters including upper and lower case letters, numbers and at least 3 special characters.)
3. Finally, where the arrow is pointing in the picture, don’t forget to assign yourself the role of administrator. This is critical because once you delete your old username, this is the only way you will have full access to your site!

Once you have created the new user, either memorize or note your new password somewhere. Now log out of your admin page and log back in with your new username and password. Once you are back in, you can delete the old “admin” username.

To do that, click on users and you will now see both your old and new usernames.

Under your old “admin,” find delete and click on it.

Once you click on delete, you will get a new page.

Now, this is important!

Before you delete this user, attribute all your posts and links to your new username.

This transfers all the content you have created, including posts and pages, to your new user name.

What happens if you don’t do this? All of your posts and pages will disappear in the blink of an eye. I’ve seen it happen, and it’s ugly. (This is why I suggested you have the latest backup of your database – I hope you did!)

Confirm deletion and you are good to go. Bye, bye admin!