[HOW TO] Remove theme or platform footer texts from your website

[TheSoloAct]

Many free themes and platforms come with their own "Designed by", "Built with", etc. texts, usually in the bottom. I'm posting a little trick that might help a lot of you in case you don't know coding.

Note that process is coding-based and requires you to have CSS control over the website. For example, in WordPress you can go to Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS to do this. Most platforms provide some sort of functionality to add CSS. So that you can change colors and font sizes. We're going to exploit this.

1. Find out how to edit CSS. If it's not possible to edit CSS, you're stuck with the text.
2. Open the website. Right click the text you want to remove, click Inspect Element.
3. Find the container that houses said text. If you're using a modern browser, hovering over various elements from this HTML code will soon help you find out which "container" the text is placed in. Most probably it's a div.
4. Right click said container > Copy CSS selector. Paste into a text file. Let's say the copied selector is "div.copyright".
5. Now, open the CSS editor. Go to the very bottom if there's code on there already.
6. Paste the following segment into it:

div.copyright {
    display: none !important;
}

Of course, instead of "div.copyright", you'll be directly pasting the CSS selector/element ID from Step 4.

Not just CMS, website builders like Wix, software like Mobirise, etc. also come with their own texts. In that case, open the website and inspect element, you'll find where is the CSS file located. For example, Mobirise has its CSS file in public_html/themes/css/

Edit the CSS file (you might need FTP software or the File Manager from your hosting cPanel) and do the steps.

 

[Panther28]

I wish i'd known this 5 years ago! lol, thanks, I'm sure people will find it handy.

 

[TheSoloAct]

I wish i'd known this 5 years ago! lol, thanks, I'm sure people will find it handy.

It's really one of the first things I do when working with clients. More people should know how to do away with this type of forced texts. No disrespect to free themes and platforms.

 

[693840]

I'd rather just edit the footer.php file instead of doing this. That way you can also add your own text there.

Right click said container > Copy CSS selector. Paste into a text file. Let's say the copied selector is "div.copyright".

I never knew that though, that's actually really useful.

 

[TheSoloAct]

I'd rather just edit the footer.php file instead of doing this. That way you can also add your own text there.

That's not the best way to do it because when you update the theme, your changes to core files like footer.php are gone. Additional CSS (formerly a child theme) always stays there, so as long as they don't change the name of the container in a future update, you're in the clear and it will keep working regardless of theme updates.

 

[Gogol]

That's not the best way to do it because when you update the theme, your changes to core files like footer.php are gone.

Not if you use a child theme. So, editing the footer out should work fine. If you hide it with css, it would still be picked up by the crawlers. It's not a good practice.

Even if you want to not modify the footer.php, there should be some kind of hook that you can override so that the copyright does not render.

 

[TheSoloAct]

Child themes are what I'm talking about. Additional CSS is just the reworked child theme module on WordPress, taking out the need to build new themes from scratch and linking to parent theme. And it's mostly about hiding it for users who'd rather not have it, crawlers can crawl all they want.

 

[Gogol]

Child themes are what I'm talking about. Additional CSS is just the reworked child theme module on WordPress, taking out the need to build new themes from scratch and linking to parent theme. And it's mostly about hiding it for users who'd rather not have it, crawlers can crawl all they want.

Ah, I see. I just saw the reply lol. Probably should have read the original post first. Yeah, child theme is the safest way to go.

 

[TheSoloAct]

Ah, I see. I just saw the reply lol. Probably should have read the original post first. Yeah, child theme is the safest way to go.

No problem lol
Yep, there's a reason WordPress has been telling users to use child themes for an eternity now.

 

[MisterXYZ]

Well you are not removing element.

You are just hiding element.

In Google's eye, that footer text is still there. If there is external link, it is still there.

Now a days most of the themes provide option to change copyright text.

 

[TheSoloAct]

Well you are not removing element.

You are just hiding element.

In Google's eye, that footer text is still there. If there is external link, it is still there.

Now a days most of the themes provide option to change copyright text.

Agreed, but as I said, it's more for the non-technical person. If a theme allows for it, then that's definitely the way to go.