A Free WordPress Theme Nearly Caught Me Out at Wealthy Affiliate – Here’s What I Missed

A Free WordPress Theme Nearly Caught Me Out at Wealthy Affiliate – Here’s What I Missed

Over the last couple of years here at Wealthy Affiliate, and after building a local site on a different platform using a different editor, I am finally starting to understand how many things actually work, and just as importantly, how many things do not work at all.

With ChatGPT helping and supporting me along the way, I noticed something today that would have completely sent me into a spin twelve months ago. The difference now is that I am looking at my sites from a very different perspective. As I shift focus towards gaining traction and eventually revenue, checking live site views, not just what I see inside WordPress, has become second nature.

So today, while continuing a general tidy-up across my sites, I spotted something odd. On all of my posts there were clickable social media icons. They looked live, but they led nowhere. No profiles. No destinations. Nothing. Which made it even stranger, because I do not even have accounts for most of them.

What made it more confusing was that these icons did not appear on pages, only on posts. And true to my stubborn nature, I assumed it had to be something simple. A toggle. A setting. A checkbox I had missed. I wanted to learn it on my own.

I searched everywhere.

Eventually, I did what I would not have done a year ago. I put my hands up, admitted defeat, and called on Chat to bail me out.

After a couple of wrong prompts, I finally got it right by including a screenshot. That was the turning point. Chat immediately told me where to look, and that is when the penny dropped. The BlogData theme was deliberately locking that feature behind an upgrade. Want to remove it? Upgrade to Pro.

That sort of thing used to catch me out when I first started, and I promised myself I would not fall for it again. Chat confirmed that this is common practice with free themes, but then came the important part. There was a way out, and it cost nothing.

The solution was simple. Copy and paste a short piece of CSS into Additional CSS.

Now, not so long ago, just seeing the word “code” would have sent me running in the opposite direction. This time I copied it, pasted it in, and paused. There was no save button. No update button. That alone would have raised my blood pressure in the past.

So I backed out, went back in again, and the code was still there. Good sign, I thought.

Next step, live site check.

I refreshed the live view on my iPhone, fingers crossed, really. And those social media icons were gone. Completely removed. And remember, these little devils never showed up anywhere inside the WordPress editor in the first place.

That moment summed up exactly how much difference experience and the right support make. A year ago, this would have wasted hours. Today, it was a calm problem, a clean solution, and actually quite satisfying. Another reminder that learning how to properly look at your site matters just as much as building it in the first place. Just like the training at Wealthy Affiliate teaches you, even if you miss it the first time around.

I do not know how many free themes practice this little hook, but I know BlogData is one that does, so I am sharing this with you. If anyone knows of other themes that do this or something similar, I would love to hear about it and store it in my “beware file”.

Thanks for reading

Rob