How to Hide the WordPress Copyright Footer

Although Google advises against linking externally in the footer, certain WordPress themes incorporate the infamous “powered by WordPress” link by default – including Twenty Fourteen, Twenty Thirteen, and Twenty Twelve.

All these popular themes come equipped with the link in the footer, so you have two options: either live with it once your theme is live or follow our quick tutorial to remove it.

Yes, removing the link is officially frowned upon by WordPress, but there are two methods that do the trick:

• Using the Style.css file to cover up the footer message
• Using the Footer.php file to remove the footer from your site

Removed Powered by WordPress Using A Plugin – Remove Footer Credit Plugin

Remove or replace the footer credits or any text or HTML in the page before it is rendered without modifying code. Many WordPress “experts” recommend modifying code (such as the footer.php). Modifying code is a bad idea because if you don’t know what you’re doing (or even if you do) you can seriously break your site. Also, whenever you update your WP theme it will stomp over your changes and require you do make the modifications all over again.

With this plugin, you can easily modify your footer credits with no coding necessary. This plugin is very minimal to keep things simple and easy to use. There are just two text boxes: one to enter text/HTML to find and another to enter text/HTML to replace with (or nothing to remove). Contact me privately here or post in the comments if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

1. How to Remove Powered by WordPress using CSS

You can now preview your site and be jolly – you’ve successfully managed to hide the “powered by WordPress” message!

2. How to Completely Remove Powered By WordPress from the Footer Using PHP

The method mentioned above will only serve to hide the footer message from your site. However, it will not completely remove the link; the original message will always be shown in your Template PHP file.

Therefore, in order to permanently get rid of it, you need to edit the “Footer.php” file and remove a code sequence. Don’t worry, it’s easier than it sounds. You simply need to delete a few lines of code. The example below was provided using the Twenty Fourteen theme.
Remove Powered by WordPress by Editing the Theme Footer PHP File
Voilà! You can now preview your site in a browser to see that the footer message has completely disappeared.

Adding a Custom Footer Message

If you want to replace the WordPress footer message with a customized message like “Copyright @ Macho Themes,” modify the footer code as shown below: