How to properly hide the title of your blog?
This is one of the most common customizations that people want to do in their wordpress blog.
They want to hide their site’s title from displaying at their header. It is most probably because their header image already has it as part of the image itself.
Lets take a look at the most common approaches people take, for doing this.
Approach (1) : Delete the blog’s Title through Options Page
People go ahead and login to their wordpress, click on the Options and they look at the text box with the label “Weblog Title”. They just clear the text in that box and click on “Update Options”.
Start from
Click to Zoom!
and make it look like
Click to Zoom!
Wow ! That seems to work., isn’t it ?
Wait a minute, lets take a closer look !
As a result of your change, the following undesirable effects were created.
Issue #1 : Search Engines do not see the site’s title
You only intended your site’s title to hide from your vistor’s eyes, but now even search engine’s can not see your site’s title.
A site’s title enclosed in <h1> and </h1> tags, is one of the main things, search engines look at when they crawl around your site.
If the search engines do not know your site’s title, how will they display your site as part of any search results.?
Issue #2 : Site Title does not appear in the browser’s top bar
If the user has opened many browser windows or browser tabs, he/she may not be able to find the window/tab that your website is on.
Issue #3 : Site’s Feeds do not display a title, either
If the user subscribes to your RSS Feeds, they also do not display your site’s title.
Some feed reader softwares also reject feeds that do not have a title.
Oh my God! This approach has some serious issues, isn’t it ?
Approach (2) : Delete the line from header.php
Somewhat knowledgeable users open up the header.php in the theme directory. They know what is the line that causes the title to display in the header.
They just look for
<h1><a href="<?php bloginfo('siteurl');?>/" title="<?php bloginfo('name');?>"><?php bloginfo('name');?></a></h1>
and delete the whole line or make it
<h1></h1>
Yes. Now the site’s title do not appear in their header and they are happy !
Wait, They will still have the Issue #1 as we discussed for Approach #1.
Approach (3) : Hiding it through CSS Style definition
If we really think about the problem at hand, it is very simple. We want to hide the site’s title from the header of the site, as we already have the site’s title as part of the header image.
We only have to hide it from people browsing the site in the browser, and not from the search engines or feed readers.
Lets take a look at the CSS based solution for this.
Add
#header h1 { display:none }
at the end of style.css and save it.
Now let’s refresh the site and see if the title is hidden. It is still showing up? You have to clear your browser’s cache and refresh the page again.
Ok…Now it seems to work !
Is there any of the Issues 1, 2 and 3 as we discussed earlier ?
Nope !
Well, may be this is the proper way to hide the site’s title from the header ?
I believe so !
Disclaimer :
This would work in most of the wordpress themes [at least the ones that I created]. If it does not work in one of my themes, please go to Support Forums for my themes and if it is someone else’s theme, please contact the author of that theme.
Commenting on this post for help with your site, is not recommended.
Thanks.
1 WordPress Themes by Sadish » How to properly hide the title of your blog?on 09 Jul 2007 at 12:09 pm link to this comment
[...] want to hide the title of your blog from your header ? Please read my post at WP ThemePark [...]
2 How to properly hide the title of your blog? « Sadish and WordPresson 10 Jul 2007 at 3:36 pm link to this comment
[...] can learn about the issues with each one of those approaches and find the best solution at my article at WP [...]
3 Hugo Maeson 02 Aug 2007 at 1:53 pm link to this comment
I found out about the header.php thing of course, but I didn’t realize that was SE-unfriendly. Thanks for the tip!
4 c. dicksonon 02 Aug 2007 at 10:41 pm link to this comment
Thank you for pointing me over here! The header is now corrected.
5 Jessicaon 22 Aug 2007 at 6:05 pm link to this comment
THANK YOU!!
Thank you SO much for this rule, it has helped me SO much.
Jessica
6 Kobeon 09 Sep 2007 at 4:39 pm link to this comment
At first,i want to thank you for your solution.My problem though is that the title of my blog disappears only in home page.It is still there in single posts and pages.Can u help us with this too?
I’m not using your theme
7 Kobeon 09 Sep 2007 at 5:00 pm link to this comment
Ok,i got another solution.I added “visibility: hidden;” in the stylesheet to every line referring to header.
Thanks again.Regards from Greece 
8 angelaon 29 Sep 2007 at 8:00 am link to this comment
Hi,
Using your Paalam Theme with modifications, I actually needed to add these 2 lines to remove the visible header text:
#header h1 { display:none }
#header h2 { display:none }
THANKS for a great useful theme - I am just starting out with WordPress and I love the simple and elegant theme you have created.
-Angela
9 marton 30 Oct 2007 at 1:42 pm link to this comment
I’m using the theme ‘beautiful day’
to get around the problem i set the font size to 0em, seems to work!
.header .left {
background: #B3C2C7 url(’img/header.jpg’) no-repeat;
line-height: 150px;
text-align: center;
width: 564px; font-style:normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; font-size:0em; font-family:Trebuchet MS, sans-serif
10 Tarky7on 01 Nov 2007 at 11:01 pm link to this comment
Thanks for pointing me here Sadish. As usual, you are one of the most professional WordPress theme builders out there. My clients just love your themes, your backend toolkits make working with your themes a breeze.
Tarky7
11 wpTHEMEZILLA.comon 23 Nov 2007 at 5:42 pm link to this comment
This is amazing information, thank you.
12 Zakmanon 05 Dec 2007 at 5:22 am link to this comment
In the CSS file, the location where the title should appear is given in pixels.
So what I did on my blog was make the location something like 4000 px from the left margin, so the title is out of the range of the desktop screen, and hence not visible.
Yet it will appear in the browser top bar, because I’ve not removed the title in the Options page.
13 Sadishon 07 Dec 2007 at 11:18 am link to this comment
Zakman,
That is possible too. but I heard that Google will consider your site a SPAM if you are using such tactics to hide something.
Again it is not confirmed, but it is just what I heard.
Thanks.
14 zakmanon 17 Jan 2008 at 3:53 pm link to this comment
Yeah, Sadish, I agree there are possibilities that Google might consider my site because of the attempt at hiding some text.
This is the same as writing keywords on the site in the same color as the background, so humans can’t see it, yet the site is ‘rich’ with keywords.
But Google spiders are not human
Google does penalize one for doing that!
15 Dennison 05 Mar 2008 at 2:34 am link to this comment
Hi Sadish,
Thanks for putting up this solution as you’ve solved a problem of mine where I need to hide my blog title.
However, it still left with blog description. Possibilities to hide the description as well?
Thanks!
Regards,
Dennis.
16 Ronnie Annon 16 Apr 2008 at 11:50 pm link to this comment
Hi Sadish!
I’m thinking of moving to WordPress.org and love your Seashore theme. I’m considering using it, but have two basic questions: (1) I know I can increase the size of the header image, but is there a way for me to suppress the blog name above the image? (and still retain SEO of course (-; ) and (2) Is it possible for me to move categories to the bottom of the post?
I hate asking this since it’s a beautiful design as is, but for my particular blog, these changes would be very helpful. I don’t know CSS, but I can follow code and insert or delete where told to!
Thank you for any help and for your lovely designs.
Ronnie Ann
17 WereBearon 17 Apr 2008 at 8:23 am link to this comment
Thank you, thank you! You made my first venture into WordPress CODING a pleasure, and solved a nagging problem for me.
18 Wing Faton 11 May 2008 at 5:39 pm link to this comment
Dennis: Add this to the bottom of style.css:
.description { display:none }
19 Heatheron 12 Jun 2008 at 12:03 am link to this comment
Hi- how can I change what it says in my header? I want it to say http://www.heathertaylorphoto.com/blog, but it leaves out the /blog part. Also, off topic, but I was able to change the main colors of the blog (Love the fall leaves theme- thank you!) but when you first bring up the site it flashes a bright green- where do I go in the CSS file to change that? Thank you SO much!!
20 Fawazon 21 Jul 2008 at 7:17 am link to this comment
I was so tired from the header, your trick really did work.. Thanks
21 farzanaon 29 Jul 2008 at 3:43 am link to this comment
Hi Sadish,
First let me start by saying your themes rock!!!!
So, I followed your tips step by step to remove the header text.
It did indeed remove the text when I removed the title of my site In the WP options area. But of course this removed the title of my site from the Feed Page.
So, then I cut and pasted #header h1 { display:none } at the very bottom/end of the Stylesheet (style.css), through the theme editor. Didn’t do the trick. The default header text still showed up. I emptied bt browsers cache and I refreshed, all to no avail.
I am using your fab Fast Moving theme with Wordpress 2.5.1
Please let me know what I’m doing wrong.
Thanks,
Farzana
22 David Stembridgeon 11 Aug 2008 at 4:13 pm link to this comment
Hi Fat Wing, I was noticing the above tip for hiding description:
.description { display:none }
Does this just get dropped in below the #header h1 { display:none } tag?
(doesn’t seem to be working!)
Thanks!
23 Danielon 11 Sep 2008 at 10:12 am link to this comment
Thanks! I stumbled through a couple of other site’s explanations, but yours was spot-on, and I had the fix done in 30 seconds.
24 teston 16 Sep 2008 at 2:49 am link to this comment
the above didnt work, but this worked for me, using Cutline
#masthead h1 a {
display: none;
}
25 Jordanon 02 Oct 2008 at 12:30 am link to this comment
Worked like a charm. Thanks! I was looking for this
26 werutzbon 07 Oct 2008 at 10:18 pm link to this comment
Hi!
I want to improve my SQL capabilities.
I red really many SQL books and want to
get more about SQL for my position as db2 database manager.
What can you recommend?
Thanks,
Werutz
27 Janeon 10 Oct 2008 at 3:38 am link to this comment
I am so grateful for your support forums. This is exactly the info I was going to ask for, but then saw you had addressed it, and superbly.
What would we do without you, Sadish?
28 Steps, hints, and tricks to setting up a new self-hosted WordPress blog (with links) | TKBBon 23 Oct 2008 at 9:41 pm link to this comment
[...] Removed blog text name from header: WordPress Theme Park » Blog Archive » How to properly hide the title of your blog? [...]
29 Kyle Bradshawon 25 Oct 2008 at 4:49 pm link to this comment
Looked ALL OVER THE WEB for this info! Thanks Thanks Thanks!
30 Tyroneon 27 Nov 2008 at 11:27 pm link to this comment
You don’t wanna do this… it’s bad for SEO
31 Parkeron 31 Jan 2009 at 5:56 pm link to this comment
Word! Thanks… I went with Approach (2) because Safari mobile and other browsers (presumably) could still see the header. Knocking it out through the header.php file was the trick. Nice to solve a problem at the source.
Thx ~ pj
32 Amyon 26 Feb 2009 at 12:10 am link to this comment
Thank you, thank you!! I’d been searching for an answer to this for several hours when I finally found this post. Perfect. It worked. Of course, mine were named #name and #tagline, but this is the answer I needed. Keep up the good work.
33 Ruchion 07 Mar 2009 at 11:28 am link to this comment
I am not able to hide the tagline, althiough title can be removedsucessfully , can you help me out.
34 Sergejon 16 Mar 2009 at 9:53 am link to this comment
Hallo Sadish
This method works for home page title, but how can I get rid of title on another pages of my blog? Any suggestion?
Best regards,
Sergej
35 Codyon 23 Mar 2009 at 3:01 pm link to this comment
Thanks so much Sadish. I was using approach 1 until it occurred to me that it wouldn’t be SEO friendly and I found the answer here. Keep up the excellent work!
36 Chris Brownon 27 May 2009 at 1:01 am link to this comment
Great tip, thanks a ton!
37 Tanner Campbellon 01 Jun 2009 at 4:31 am link to this comment
Hey man, this really helped — but I’m having another issue, well the same issue actually, just in another spot. Your code works to hide the blog title on the front page, but on any of the subsidiary pages like ‘About’ or ‘Contact’ the title still shows … any thoughts?
Thx man,
T.
38 Jonathan Birchon 06 Jun 2009 at 3:39 pm link to this comment
Hey thanks so much for this post.
What if I only want to hide the header on certain pages, and not all of them?
A response would be greatly appreciated.
-Jonathan
39 Alanon 20 Jun 2009 at 4:18 am link to this comment
Well, first thanks for the tip to add #header h1 { display:none }. It certainly suppresses the ‘Blog Title’.
But I also want to suppress the ‘Tagline’.
I tried adding this:-
#header h2 { display:none }
#header h3 { display:none }
But the Tagline still appears.
Any ideas anyone?
40 gregon 27 Jun 2009 at 8:04 am link to this comment
many thanks, seems to work fine, now hopefully my title s will now re-appear in google