When using a free WordPress theme, you will see “proudly powered by WordPress” in the website footer. Surely you as a website owner don’t want this and want to delete it immediately, because it looks unprofessional.

However, if you have doubts and are still asking whether it is permissible to remove the mark? The answer is yes you can delete the sentence. Because WordPress comes with a GPL license, which means you or anyone else are free to customize and change in any way.

In the past, WordPress theme builders provided ways to make this section easy to remove. However, as time went on they started hiding this part in classes where it was hard to find.

So when you want to remove the theme credit from the website, you can’t just target that sentence. There are several ways that have been proven and you can use to remove “proudly powered by WordPress” credits:

1. By checking the theme settings.
2. By using custom CSS code.
3. Using plugins.

We will show each of the above methods in this guide.

Check Theme Settings

The first step you have to take to remove “proudly powered by WordPress” is to check the theme options. While this is not the case and most of them are with premium themes, some free themes also provide an option to remove the section.

You can login to the WordPress admin area. Then on the left panel, go to Appearance > Customize and if the theme includes this option, you will be able to find it.

Remove Footer Credit Using Custom CSS Code

This is one of the most powerful ways if your WordPress theme does not include an option to remove credit footers. But before you can apply this method, you have to know the ‘Class’ or ‘Element ID’ where the footer credits.

Since every theme creator can name a Class or ID however they want, of course you have to find it yourself.

How to Find a Theme CSS Class or ID

To see the theme CSS class or ID, you can use the Inspect Element feature. In this guide, we are using PopularFX free theme by Pagelayer.

1. Point the cursor to the footer credit in the section where you will see the class or ID. Then, right click and select Inspect if you are using Google Chrome.

2. What you need here is the class or ID of the element, depending on the theme you are using. In our case, this is the “site-info” class. You can see it in the left and right views which are highlighted.

3. To prove it, we will try to remove this element. But when we refresh the browser the elements will reappear because it is just a simulation.

If you have made sure the class or ID of the element you have chosen is correct, the next step is to remove the theme credit display.

How to Remove Credit Footer in WordPress Themes

Now that you’ve found the Class or element ID from the footer credits, all you need next is a line of code to hide it. But before that, you have to open Appearance > Customize.

Once open, in the left pane click Additional CSS. In this menu you can add CSS code to remove WordPress theme credits.

The next step is to enter the CSS code. If your element uses ‘Class’, then your CSS code uses . (dot) as a prefix and becomes like this .site-info.

If using ‘ID’, use # (hashtag) to start #site-info. This is how the full CSS code looks like.

Using the Class element:

Using the ID element:

How to Change Footer Credits in WordPress Themes

But if you just want to replace the WordPress theme credits text with what you want, use the following CSS code.

Don’t forget to always replace site-info with the CSS elements used by your theme. Then, enter the sentence you want to use to change the credit theme in the content section.

Remove Proudly Powered by WordPress With a Plugin

There are various plugins that you can use to remove footer credits from WordPress themes. We will recommend two free plugins that are easy to use.

But before that, you can check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Remove Footer Credit

This plugin offers simple and user-friendly tools, also works with most WordPress themes. It allows you to delete and edit footer credits in a few steps.

Just open the dashboard, then navigate to Tools > Remove Footer Credit. Two text boxes will appear, one to remove text from the footer and the other to add custom content. You can also empty the credit footer by adding nothing, click Save when finished.

Remove “Powered by WordPress”

Remove Powered by WordPress is also a powerful and easy to use plugin, it works for all WordPress themes.

Allows you to remove unwanted text, and you can also add content to the widget area. You can use this plugin via Appearance > Customize > Theme options > Remove powered by WordPress.

If you are confused about which method to use, we recommend using CSS code lines. Because if you use too many plugins even for small purposes, it can overload the server so that your website will be slow in responding to requests.

That’s all how to remove theme credits on WordPress. If you still have questions, please leave them in the comments column.