WordPress: Removing Powered by WordPress from the Footer

If you’re looking to give your WordPress site a more professional and customized appearance, removing the “Powered by WordPress” footer is a great step. If you're currently using a default theme, you probably already noticed the footer saying "Powered by WordPress". Other security-related reasons may include failing to alert hackers of the future that they are running a WordPress CMS and, lastly, probably a need to attain a unique professional look of the website.

So for this, we have come up with an article to help you remove it. Also, you don't need to worry about copyright concerns because WordPress is under GPL license, which is we are free to customize the site or software in any way, including removing their "Powered by WordPress" disclaimer.

• Removing it Manually from the Theme Editor
• Removing it by using a Plugin
• Summary

Removing it Manually from the Theme Editor

1. Navigate through Appearance, then select Theme Editor.
   
2. From the right-hand side, under Theme Files, click on footer.php.
   
3. Once the footer.php file is selected, navigate and locate this line of code:

   <p class="powered-by-wordpress">
                 <a href="<?php echo esc_url( __( 'https://wordpress.org/', 'twentytwenty' ) ); ?>">
                   <?php _e( 'Powered by WordPress', 'twentytwenty' ); ?>
                 </a>
               </p><!-- .powered-by-wordpress -->

   Note: For this example, twentytwenty is the name of the theme, so it can show a different name on your theme editor, depending on what you're currently using.

   Here's an example from the Theme editor:

   
4. Ensure that you select, highlight, and then remove this line of code from the editor. After that, click Update File to save changes. This will now remove the "Powered by WordPress" from the footer.
   

   Important: Once you can pull up and replace the code in the footer.php file, remember that if you update the overall WordPress theme or your theme automatically updates itself, your modifications from the footer.php file will be overwritten.
   
   As a result, the WordPress disclaimer will again show up. If that happens, ensure to repeat the same steps above, or we recommend installing the Remove "Powered by WordPress" plugin.

Removing it by using a Plugin

1. Navigate through Plugins, then select Add New.
   
2. From this section, on the right-hand side, type in Remove "Powered by WordPress" in the keyword field. It will automatically show the results, then click Install on that plugin.
   
3. Once it's finished installing, click Activate.
   
4. It should now automatically remove the "Powered by WordPress" from the footer. To access the settings and edit your Footer. Navigate to Plugins > Installed Plugins. Then scroll down and locate Remove "Powered by WordPress", then click Settings.
   

Summary

The article describes two ways to remove the "Powered by WordPress" footer of your WordPress site. The two include manual alteration of the footer.php file using the Theme Editor and the use of a bespoke plugin for this particular task. To remove this footer manually, you visit the Theme Editor, find the code in the footer.php, and delete it there. This would probably be overridden with theme updates. Because this method of the plugin is easy to use and utilizes no code edit, it ensures that the footer message never returns, which is effective even after theme updates.