<a href=Image by Christopher Ross (CC BY-SA 2.0)">

Image by Christopher Ross (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Customize Your Site’s Footer Credit

Starting today, you have greater control over the message at the bottom of your site’s pages.

July 6, 2016

Scott Evans

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!

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50 Comments

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  1. Philip Arthur Moore Jul 6th at 4:36 pm

    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.

    Liked by 28 people

  2. Kerry C. Mitchell Jul 6th at 4:45 pm

    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!

    Liked by 29 people

  3. David Boles Jul 6th at 5:13 pm

    Footer gone — leaving a big block of black, though! However, this is still purely delightful. Thank you!

    Liked by 9 people

  4. Steven Colborne Jul 6th at 5:16 pm

    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.

    Liked by 10 people

  5. David Boles Jul 6th at 5:39 pm

    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!

    Liked by 5 people

  6. leleharris Jul 6th at 6:05 pm

    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 😃 !!!

    Liked by 6 people

  7. Laurie Buchanan Jul 6th at 7:07 pm

    Just made the change. Love it — thank you!

    Liked by 7 people

  8. what sandra thinks Jul 6th at 7:58 pm

    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…

    Liked by 8 people

  9. Karen Jul 6th at 8:13 pm

    That is so cool, thank you very much!

    Liked by 6 people

  10. Strix Texturae Jul 6th at 8:22 pm

    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.

    Liked by 12 people

  11. suerado Jul 6th at 8:43 pm

    Thank you WordPress – much neater and nicer!

    Liked by 9 people

  12. MyDandelionMind Jul 6th at 9:09 pm

    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!

    Liked by 8 people

  13. Carla Doria Jul 6th at 9:19 pm

    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!

    Liked by 7 people

  14. ayersdj Jul 6th at 9:35 pm

    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.:

    Liked by 6 people

    • Scott Evans Jul 7th at 9:14 am

      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.

      Liked by 5 people

    • Kathryn P. Jul 7th at 2:42 pm

      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.

      Liked by 7 people

  15. thewritewade Jul 7th at 12:26 am

    Thank you for always thinking of us! We appreciate you!

    Liked by 6 people

  16. lowell66admin Jul 7th at 2:07 am

    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?

    Liked by 6 people

  17. Fotis Jul 7th at 6:36 am

    Nice work guys! I suggest giving the option (with a checkbox) to display or hide the WordPress logo in every option.

    Liked by 6 people

  18. Dr Abdollah Salleh Jul 7th at 7:05 am

    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.

    Liked by 7 people

  19. thesciencegeek Jul 7th at 10:14 am

    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.

    Liked by 10 people

  20. alguzlan Jul 7th at 10:24 am

    We like to use “Powered by WordPress” for our business. Thank you.

    Liked by 9 people

  21. Simon Hawketts Jul 7th at 11:29 am

    I tried disabling the footer and it seemed to also remove the google analytics tracking code.

    Liked by 5 people

    • Scott Evans Jul 8th at 9:24 am

      These changes would not have affected your analytics tracking code. Please contact us here for help with troubleshooting this: https://wordpress.com/help

      Liked by 3 people

      • Simon Hawketts Jul 8th at 10:03 am

        Sorry I made an assumption there – you are right it doesn’t remove the analytics code. It does however seem to stop any tracking of views on google analytics. When I disabled the footer there were no views recorded on google analytics over a 12 hour period although the wordpress stats recorded a normal amount (about 1200). Once I enabled the footer analytics started tracking again.

        Liked by 5 people

  22. Image Earth Travel Jul 7th at 12:07 pm

    I’ve just changed to the logo option, which looks great and discrete. However, I had my copyright on the LHS, which has disappeared from my actual posts (still displays on my Home page). Any ideas why this would happen?

    Liked by 6 people

  23. Jane Jul 7th at 12:14 pm

    This is a nice feature and I really don’t mind an unobtrusive mention of WordPress in the footer. But I really, really wish you would make it possible to hide the admin. bar that appears at the top of every site when visited by someone who is logged into their own WordPress account. When I visit another person’s site the very first impression I get, before noticing the content of the website, should not be “Oh, I see they are using WordPress.com”.

    Liked by 5 people

    • Scott Evans Jul 8th at 9:33 am

      Hi Jane, thanks for the feedback. At the moment we see the toolbar as an important navigation tool. It allows one click access to the most popular features of WordPress.com and would be difficult to move around without it.

      Liked by 4 people

  24. Eugenia Jul 7th at 4:53 pm

    I love the idea of options. Thank you.

    Liked by 6 people

  25. Kevin Bradberry Jul 7th at 7:48 pm

    Bless you for this feature.

    Liked by 6 people

  26. Merry Hearts Medicine Jul 7th at 10:19 pm

    It’s funny…I tried all the options, but since I only have a simple blog site (rather than a business), I decided to stick with the original “Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.” I like how it invites others to enjoy all the great things WordPress has to offer. Thanks for providing such wonderful tools for budding bloggers like myself!

    Liked by 9 people

  27. Joe Klingler Jul 8th at 1:02 am

    Hi Scott, Kudos for providing footer options. How about one to remove the theme name? Or is there already a way to remove it? Thanks, J

    Liked by 7 people

    • Scott Evans Jul 8th at 9:08 am

      Thanks. If you are on the business plan the theme name will be removed along with the WordPress.com footer credit. This is the only way to hide the theme credit at the moment.

      Liked by 2 people

  28. homeo care Jul 8th at 5:57 am

    We really appreciate the fact that WordPress took our feedback in the matter and have introduced these changes. A small step in giving more freedom of choice to bloggers but has a big impact in delighting users. Kudos, good just keeps getting better at WordPress.

    Liked by 7 people

  29. docheri Jul 8th at 12:41 pm

    Scott,
    From the very beginning of my joining the WordPress community (3 years now, I think) I wanted my own copyright assertion at the bottom of every page. I would never remove the the credit for the theme name nor would I every not acknowledge the contribution of Automattic but the content, every word, common and typo is mine. So, I added a little CSS of my own, a footer #site-generator:before {… expression. I like mine and I’ll stick with it but this change is very welcome, and long overdue.

    Liked by 6 people

  30. Henry Akerele Jul 8th at 5:50 pm

    This is one upgrade that i so much love and appreciate.

    Liked by 4 people

  31. NS Murty Jul 9th at 5:15 pm

    I have been blogging for over 5 years. I put on record my deep appreciation and happiness for your constant help to wordpress.com bloggers. “Thank you” just can’t adequately express my feelings. I love WordPress.

    Liked by 7 people

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