Edit The Default WordPress RSS Widget

Last Updated: 13 July 2014 By Mike Haydon

Problem: I wanted to remove the link that the title of the default wordpress RSS widget automatically inserts.

After many frustrating hours of searching and researching, I finally figured out the solution. Every other solution I could find through google was from an earlier, deprecated version of wordpress.

Unfortunately, everywhere they tell you to look doesn’t have the code you need.

This solution works in the version current at the date of writing: WordPress 3.2.1

Solution:

1. Look for the file /wp-includes/default-widgets.php
2. Scroll down to line 740
3. In case page numbers change, you are looking for the Default RSS Widget. Line 740 is:
   $title = “<a class=’rsswidget’ href=’$url’ title='” . esc_attr__( ‘Syndicate this content’ ) .”‘><img style=’border:0′ width=’14’ height=’14’ src=’$icon’ alt=’RSS’ /></a> <a class=’rsswidget’ href=’$link’ title=’$desc’>$title</a>”;
4. Edit that. If you want to remove the link in the title of the rss widget, change the line to:
   $title = “<img style=’border:0′ width=’14’ height=’14’ src=’$icon’ alt=’RSS’ />$title”;
   That removes both the link around the rss icon and the title.

Hopefully that saves you the hours of frustration I just went through to find the code! It seems obvious now, but it was anything other than that at the time.