Starting today, you have greater control over the message at the bottom of your site’s pages.
Customize Your Site’s Footer Credit
Jul 6, 2016 @ 4:15 pm
Every WordPress.com site displays a footer credit — a line of text at the bottom of the page — which links to our homepage and to the theme you’re currently using. These links help your visitors set up a WordPress site of their own, and highlight the reach and scope of our community. It’s a way to show the world the pride we take in building WordPress.com, which so many of you have chosen as your home on the web.
Over the years we’ve received feedback about the footer credit, where the language didn’t always align with the goals for your website or blog. So today, we’re rolling out the ability to customize the footer credit. We wanted to give you more control over your site’s appearance while maintaining an important part of WordPress.com.
Custom Footer Credits
What’s new? As of today, all WordPress.com users can choose among several options for the footer credit, from a minimalist WordPress.com logo to new options like “A WordPress.com Website” or “Powered by WordPress.com.” If your site is on our Business plan, you now have the option to remove the footer credit altogether.
To find these options, head to My Sites → Customize and select the site you wish to change. In the Site Identity section, look for the Footer Credit option. Choose the option you would like to use — the Customizer will let you preview how each one looks on your site — and hit Save & Publish when you’re ready. Your site will be updated instantly.
We currently offer five footer options, but we’ll keep an eye on your feedback, and will consider adding other alternatives in the future. If you have a suggestion, we would love to hear it — leave a comment with your ideas. Enjoy!
- Jul 6, 2016 @ 4:15 pm
- Customization, Features, Themes, WordPress.com
29 Comments
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This has been one of the biggest barriers for businesses on WordPress.com and maintaining control over their brand. BIG kudos to you all for making the decision to make these credits more flexible. It’s a small change that’s going to have a huge impact moving forward.
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Thanks WordPress. I’m happy to give you credit at the bottom of my blogs. You people are the best! You give us so much support. You make us into a community. You are always there for us. I never expected all this when I started blogging. I love WordPress!
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Footer gone — leaving a big block of black, though! However, this is still purely delightful. Thank you!
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Thanks for the feedback. We only remove the footer text from your site and do not make any layout changes to the footer area of the theme. As all themes are different, the results will vary slightly. You have the option for custom CSS on your site which could be used to hide the dark section at the bottom of your theme. More details on custom CSS can be found here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-design/.
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Hi David,
Your WordPress.com Business upgrade does include the option to hide the footer text, but I see the empty “section” is still there. I’ve emailed you directly to help fix that, thanks for letting us know!
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Very happy to learn of this more flexible approach to the WordPress footer credit. I love blogging with WordPress and this is just one more reason to continue using your platform. A small change, but a significant one, and I appreciate it and all the hard work that you to do enhance the blogging experience.
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Hey Jerry!
Thanks for the email, my friend! The footer block is gone! Yay!
Will that CSS code you gave me work across all WordPress.com themes I might use?
If I change themes, will I have to always choose to hide the footer, or is this now a universal setting?
Thank you!
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CSS is theme-specific, so what works in one theme may not work in another. If you need help in the future with a different theme, feel free to post in the CSS Customization forum and we’ll be glad to lend a hand.
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This is awesome!!!
Even though I’m using the free version, it would be a blessing to see the footer credit gone for it as well; but I can’t complain because it gives me the option to choose if I want the logo or the written out text of WordPress.com.
This was a really great idea because I was wondering when I first started blogging it will be really nice to see the footer credit gone. I didn’t even know what was the footer credit until I took Blogging101 classes.
Happy Blogging 😃 !!!
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Just made the change. Love it — thank you!
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The theme I’m using already has a WordPress logo at the end so it looks strange if I choose the logo option. It’s not the same exact logo either, so it looks even more odd. I’ll choose something else, but themes already having the logo seems to be the case for most themes I’ve looked at. That really leaves out the option of using the logo unless I want two similar but not identical logos right beside each other…
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Hey Sandra,
Thanks for the feedback. I will make a note of that; we might be able to fix that up in a future revision.
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You’re welcome — thanks for reading and considering this!
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That is so cool, thank you very much!
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Thanks for the freedom, WordPress team! I have now changed the wording on my site to “A WordPress.com site”. I like it. It is for me a token of gratitude and pride. WordPress is a Rolls Royce after all – might as well flaunt it. Thanks again.
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Thank you WordPress – much neater and nicer!
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I’m on the Rebalance theme and have changed to the ‘WordPress.com logo’. I really like the logo option as it sits with the other icons in the footer better – thanks!
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This is excellent! I know some people were deterred of having the word “blog” in sites that didn’t have a blog goal. Thanks for doing this change!
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Is there a way to replace the footer text with a custom text that will appear on all pages? I’d like to add a copyright statement and my name that will appear as footer, automatically, on all pages. Kind of “all rights reserved.:
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Hi David. As mentioned below we do not have an option for custom text at the moment. The theme you are currently using does however have three footer widget areas. Using a text widget in one of these would allow you to add a custom block of text across your entire site.
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You can add a copyright notice with CSS. If you tweak your existing custom CSS slightly, it should work in your current theme:
.site-info::after {
color: #999999;
content: "Copyright Notice: All Rights Reserved - David J. Ayers";
display: block;
font-weight: bold;
}
If you need further help with it or any other custom CSS, feel free to post in our CSS Customization forum.
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Thank you for always thinking of us! We appreciate you!
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Thanks for making this needed change. The free blog website was what our 50th Year Class
Reunion was looking for in promoting our upcoming October event. I had designed & managed another website using the premium WordPress for a ballroom dance studio. Is there a way to include a footer credit regarding copyright on the content?
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Thanks for the feedback. At the moment we do not have an option for custom text in the footer. On some themes this is possible to do this using a footer widget. On your current theme I would recommend adding a text widget to the primary sidebar: https://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/text-widget/.
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Nice work guys! I suggest giving the option (with a checkbox) to display or hide the WordPress logo in every option.
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Interesting idea! I have made a note of this on our issue tracker for future consideration. Thanks for the feedback.
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I am proud to use WordPress.com and especially the 2014 theme without which I would not be able to present my website and blog the way I do now! Also, WordPress.com makes customizing a breeze.
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I think it amazing how much WordPress gives us for free.
I have a custom domain (www.thesciencegeek.org) which I pay a small amount for, so the word “wordpress” doesn’t actually appear in my site’s URL. I am happy to let the world know on my pages’ footer that it is a WordPress.com site.
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We like to use “Powered by WordPress” for our business. Thank you.
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