Complete Guide to Remove “Proudly powered by WordPress”

It’s well-known that WordPress is often referred to as the best CMS platform. But sometimes, its branding around the website can be a bit much. Personalizing the website is important, and the first step is to change the favicon. But there is another glaring reminder of the platform on the website.

On the bottom of the page, you’ll see “Proudly powered by WordPress”. It can be a frustrating disclaimer in an otherwise well-designed website. So how do you remove it?

That’s what we aim to cover through this blog. I’ll tell you how the WordPress experts eliminate this message to make the design more personalized and less generic. Let’s begin.

“Proudly powered by WordPress”: Where is It Located & How Does It Look?

The “Proudly powered by WordPress” message is typically located in the footer of a WordPress website. It’s a small line of text that appears at the very bottom of the page, often alongside copyright information or other links.

The exact appearance can vary slightly depending on the theme used by your website. But it will resemble this.

Why Remove the “Proudly powered by WordPress” Message?

While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with keeping the “Proudly powered by WordPress” message, some people choose to remove it for a few reasons:

• Branding and Professionalism: Some website owners feel it looks more professional or polished to have a completely custom WordPress footer. That is without any mention of the platform and with a consistent brand image.
• Design Aesthetics: Depending on the website’s design, the message might not fit in with the overall aesthetic of the footer. Removing it can create a cleaner or more minimalist look.
• Security (a minor issue): Although a minor concern, removing the message can slightly obscure the fact that the website is running on WordPress. This might make it a tiny bit less appealing to hackers who specifically target WordPress vulnerabilities.
• Space Optimization: If the footer area is limited, removing the message frees up space for other content, like contact information, social media links, or copyright notices.   
• Control and Customization: Some people simply prefer to have complete control over every aspect of their website, including the footer content.

Ultimately, whether to keep or remove the message is a personal choice based on your website’s goals and your design preferences.

How to Remove “Proudly powered by WordPress”?

There are a few ways to remove the “Proudly powered by WordPress” message from your website’s footer. Let’s take a look.

Using the Theme Customizer

WordPress offers Theme Customizer to help make changes to your website’s appearance in real time. Many themes provide options within the Customizer to modify or remove the “Proudly powered by WordPress” footer message. Here’s how you implement this process:

Step 1: Log into the WordPress admin dashboard.

Step 2: Navigate to Appearance > Customize (or Editor). This will open the Theme Customizer in a new window or tab.

This will open a live editor. At the bottom of the page, you’ll see something like “Proudly powered by WordPress” or “Designed with WordPress”.

Step 3: You can easily delete the whole field or replace the text with a custom one.

Step 4: After you are done, click “Save Draft” to save the changes.

You can take care of this message quite easily without any coding know-how.

Using a WordPress Plugin

WordPress plugins let you integrate new features and customize the website. Some plugins can even help you remove the “Proudly powered by WordPress” message from your website’s footer. 

Here’s how you go about it.

Step 1: Choose the best WordPress plugin for removing or customizing footer credits. One of the popular options is Remove Footer Credit. Visit the official WordPress repository via the dashboard and look for this plugin.

Step 2: Install the plugin following the due process.

Step 3: Open the plugin settings and make the necessary changes.

Step 4: Once you’ve configured the plugin settings, click the “Save Changes” or “Publish” button to apply the changes to your website.

Although it’s a safe and effective method, you need to ensure plugin compatibility with the latest version of WordPress.

Using the footer.php file

Editing the footer.php file directly gives you the most control over your website’s footer. But it requires some technical knowledge and should be done with caution. Here’s how the process goes:

Step 1: Access your key theme files from the WordPress directory structure. You can do so via the hosting cPanel or using the FTP client.

Step 2: Once you’ve accessed your theme files, navigate to the theme’s directory: /wp-content/themes/your-theme-name/

Find the file named footer.php. This file contains the code that generates your website’s footer. This ensures that your customizations won’t be overwritten when the theme is updated.

Step 3: Before you make changes to the core footer file, ensure you create a child theme. So your customizations won’t be overwritten when the theme is updated. And, take a complete backup of the file.

Step 4: Open the footer.php file from your child theme’s directory in a text editor (like Notepad++ or Sublime Text).

Step 5: Look for the line of code that displays the “Proudly powered by WordPress” message. It usually looks something like this:

<a href="<?php echo esc_url( __( 'https://wordpress.org/', 'twentynineteen' ) ); ?>"><?php

/* translators: %s: WordPress. */

printf( esc_html__( 'Proudly powered by %s.', 'twentynineteen' ), 'WordPress' );
?></a>

Step 6: Save the footer.php file. If you’re using an FTP client, upload the modified file back to your server.

This method gives you complete control over your footer content, and inadvertently, the message “Proudly powered by WordPress”. But footer.php is a core file, which means one wrong step can cause issues to your website.

So when it comes to making core changes to the website, it would be better to go with our highly-skilled WordPress developers. We will help you edit your WordPress website comprehensively.

Let’s say you have decided to remove this message from your website. Now, can it get you in legal trouble? Let’s find out in the next section.

Is It Legal to Remove “Proudly powered by WordPress”?

In a word, yes. There are no legal issues pertaining to removing this message.

WordPress is an open-source software, licensed under the GPL (General Public License). That grants you the freedom to use, modify, and distribute the software as you like. This includes modifying the code to remove or alter the default footer message.

Moreover, most WordPress themes, especially those from the official WordPress.org directory, are also licensed under the GPL. That means you have the right to modify their code, including the footer files.

So go ahead and confidently remove this message or any other promotional signage from the platform on your WordPress website. It’s entirely your choice how you want to present your website and brand.

FAQs on Removing “Proudly powered by WordPress”

To Summarize

WordPress is one of the best CMS and it shows in its popularity. But messages like “Proudly powered by WordPress” can be a hindrance in the branding and design of a website.

So you can remove it via the simplicity of the Theme Customizer, the convenience of a plugin, or the flexibility of editing the footer.php file. The choice is yours. Deleting or changing this message won’t affect the functionality of your website in any way.

But if you are thinking of going with the more technical, core method, a consultation with our WordPress professionals is what you need.