You have just finished your website. You have a catchy header, your content is clear and you are ready to make your website public.

However, you will notice the “Proudly powered by WordPress” link on your footer. Is your masterpiece doomed to be a WordPress mascot forever, or can the footer be removed? The good news is, it can be done.

You have probably noticed the footnote message that refers to WordPress.org: Proudly powered by WordPress .

It's a little message that's in the footer section of several WordPress themes natives, which proves the volunteers of the WordPress project right. However, while some people may find this unattractive, you may have bigger plans for your website and this “advertising message” may not match your plans. So there you have it, trying to figure out how to remove the “proudly powered by WordPress” credit from your site. And that is precisely what this article aims to help you achieve.

Is it legal to delete the signature of WordPress?

You'll be happy to know that if you remove the WordPress footer from your website, you will not encounter any problems.

WordPress, as an entity, is free and under LPG license (General Public License). This essentially means that you are well within your rights to use, modify, and even redistribute WordPress.

If that doesn't reassure you enough, WordPress theme that you download from the official WordPress.org theme directory is covered by the same license. So you are also free to edit these themes.

That being said, in the rest of this article, I will show you how to modify or delete the WordPress copyright footer of your website, especially if you are using a default WordPress theme.

Always save before making any changes

First things first. Before making any changes to your website, it is always a good idea to save the content of your site. So if you accidentally break something, you can quickly fix it by restoring your website to an older version. Many people have lost valuable information and even entire websites by not backing up their websites, and we wouldn't want the same to happen to you.

How to hide the footer of the WordPress copyright

To hide the proudly powered by WordPress in the footer, you will need:

• Access to your WordPress dashboard

Use CSS

It's the quick, easy, but unsavory method that deserves a mention, but it's a method to be avoided. This involves adding CSS to the Customizer theme, and here's how:

1. Go to Appearance> Customize on the WordPress dashboard
2. Click on Additional CSS at the bottom of the menu.
3. Paste in the CSS code below

.site-info {display: none; }

If, however, you are a bit of a daredevil or if the loss of search traffic is not your concern (maybe the majority of your traffic is not from searches), then feel free to use this method. If you are more cautious or if the majority of your site's traffic comes from search, read the next option.

How to remove the WordPress footer Copyright

To change the footer you will need:

• Access to your WordPress admin space
• A text editor on your computer

Method # 1: via the WordPress Theme Customizer

Depending on the theme you are using, you can optionally remove or edit the "powered by WordPress" footer directly in your theme customizer.

1. Go to Appearance> Customize on the WordPress dashboard
2. Click on Footer > Lower bar
3. You can disable footer credits or put your own text in Change the footer credit.

Method # 2: via the native theme options.

It works best for most third-party themes. Sometimes the customizer of WordPress theme native may not be equipped to edit the footer in WordPress; so your best bet is to check the theme settings first.

If you are unable to locate the option to turn off Footer Credits in the Theme Customizer, you can also look at the "Widgets" section or the options for each theme.

Method # 3: Edit the file Footer.php

If maintaining the SEO of your website is important to you, modifying the file footer.php your theme is another easy way to remove the credit link from the WordPress footer. The file footer.php contains the information your site needs to display the footer of your site, including, you guessed it, the WordPress credits link.

The safest way to change the WordPress footer code on your website is to use an SFTP file manager like Filezilla to access your core files. For security reasons, some web hosts disable the option to change your theme code directly from your WordPress admin area. If you notice that you are unable to locate your website theme editor in your WordPress admin area, it may have been disabled by your host. This means that you will need an SFTP file manager to access your files. But don't worry, we've explained how to do it.

1. Log in to your site using an SFTP file manager.
2. Access the directory public_html / wp-content / themes .
3. Open the directory containing the theme you want to edit.
4. Find the file footer.php , then copy it to the appropriate child theme directory.
5. Open the file footer.php using a text editor, then find and remove the code from the footer, depending on the theme you're using.

Theme Twenty Sixteen:

 
 
     
        " rel="home"> 
             
         
     
    
     
     
 

get_template_part ('template-parts / footer / site', 'info');

Twenty-nine theme:

,

6. Click "Update File" and the footer credit link will disappear or be changed.

Small warning: before changing your WordPress theme, it is always a good idea to create a child theme rather than directly modifying the code of your WordPress website. Here's why you should do this:

1. Any update that brings your theme to the latest version could potentially cancel all your work and bring your footer back to its pre-edited state.
2. By changing the code directly on your website, you may change or delete the wrong code and break your website.

If you're new to creating children's themes, you can read more about it in our guide How to create a children's WordPress theme .

That's all !

Hope you found this article helpful in removing or modifying the “Proudly Powered by WordPress” footer link credit on your website. As you can see, there are several methods of skinning the cat. So feel free to try the other methods mentioned above if any of them doesn't work. If you have any questions about removing the WordPress copyright footer from your website, please feel free to leave a comment below.