When a link or whatever element has a title attribute, and you go with your mouse on that element, you will see a tooltip that shows you the value of that title attribute.
I mean something that looks like the following picture.

WordPress link tooltips, also known as title attributes, appear as small pop-ups when users hover over a link. While these tooltips can be helpful in some cases, they can also clutter your website, disrupting user experience (UX) and appearing unnecessary. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the steps to hide link tooltips in WordPress, remove tooltips on hover, and even disable link tooltips using CSS and simple WordPress tweaks.
Why Hide or Remove Link Tooltips?
Removing link tooltips helps to create a cleaner, more focused design for your WordPress site, enhancing user experience by eliminating unwanted distractions. Here’s how hiding tooltips can benefit your site:
- Improved UX: Removing tooltips helps visitors concentrate on your content.
- Cleaner Aesthetic: Tooltip-free links contribute to a minimalist, distraction-free interface.
- Accessibility Improvements: Screen readers already handle link descriptions, so removing the tooltip can streamline navigation for all users.
If these sound appealing, read on for WordPress link tooltip removal techniques that will work for any site.
Methods to Hide or Remove Link Tooltips in WordPress
Below are several approaches, from using CSS to tweaking your WordPress code, that will turn off tooltips on links or stop link hover tooltips altogether.
1. Remove the Title Attribute from Links in WordPress
One of the simplest ways to remove tooltips is by eliminating the title
attribute within the HTML of your links. Here’s how:
- Edit the Post or Page: Open the WordPress editor for the post or page you want to change.
- Switch to Code View: In the editor, switch to HTML view (usually found in the “Text” or “Code” tab).
- Remove the Title Attribute: Locate any
<a>
tags with atitle
attribute. Delete thetitle="..."
section from the code.
This approach manually removes the link title tooltip from individual links, which works well for one-time changes.
2. Hide Link Tooltips Sitewide with CSS
Using a bit of CSS, you can hide tooltips across your WordPress site without manually editing each link. This is an efficient way to remove tooltip on hover or disable link tooltip in bulk.
- Navigate to Theme Customizer: Go to Appearance > Customize in your WordPress dashboard.
- Open Additional CSS: Scroll down and click on Additional CSS.
- Paste the CSS Code: Add the following CSS code:
This CSS code hides the tooltip when a link with a title attribute is hovered over. Save the changes, and check your site to confirm that the link tooltip is disabled.
3. Disable Link Tooltips with a Plugin
If you’re not comfortable with code, a plugin can help you stop tooltips on link hover sitewide. In this case, you can use the plugin Hide TItles On Hover. This plugin removes title attributes from links, images, and other elements sitewide without affecting the SEO.
Simply install and activate the plugin, and that’s it.
4. Suppress Link Tooltips with jQuery
For a more advanced solution, you can use jQuery to suppress link tooltips across your WordPress site. Here’s how to implement it:
- Navigate to Appearance > Theme File Editor: Open the Theme File Editor in WordPress.
- Add Code to Header or Footer: In your theme’s header or footer file (often
header.php
orfooter.php
), add this jQuery snippet:This code removes the
title
attribute from all links on your site, eliminating hover tooltips.
5. Remove Link Tooltips for Specific Elements
Sometimes, you only want to remove tooltips from specific elements, such as navigation menus or specific page links. Here’s how you can do this with CSS:
- Find the CSS Class of the Element: Use your browser’s developer tools (right-click > Inspect) to locate the CSS class of the specific link.
- Add Targeted CSS Code: Go to Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS, and add code similar to the following:
Replace .your-link-class
with the specific class of the link you want to change. This way, you can hide tooltips on specific elements while keeping them on others if needed.
6. Custom PHP Code for WordPress Link Tooltip Removal
If you prefer a code-based solution directly in WordPress, you can add a PHP snippet to your theme’s functions.php
file:
- Navigate to Theme File Editor: Open Appearance > Theme File Editor.
- Edit the Functions.php File: Add this code snippet to remove link tooltips sitewide:
This code automatically removes the title
attribute, which hides link tooltips without affecting the functionality of your site.
Testing the Tooltip Removal
After implementing one or more of the methods above, it’s a good idea to test your site:
- Hover over links: Verify that no tooltip appears when you hover over the links.
- Test across devices: Ensure the tooltips are hidden on both desktop and mobile browsers.
If all is working as expected, you’ve successfully hidden link tooltips in WordPress.
SEO and accessibility issues when you remove the titles of a link
Not showing the tooltip by removing the titles will make the style a lot nicer, however, the accessibility and the SEO of your website will have problems without the title attributes.
This is why it would be better to use the plugin Hide Titles On Hover.
The code of this plugin is a little more complicated, but it will take care of the accessibility and the SEO best practices of your website.
Final Thoughts on Disabling WordPress Link Tooltips
By following these steps, you can hide link tooltips, remove hover text tooltips, and disable link title tooltips across your WordPress site. These methods make it simple to keep your site’s design clean, improve the user experience, and streamline navigation without unwanted pop-ups. However, if you want to keep the best results in terms of SEO and accessibility, consider the option to use the plugin Hide Links On Hover.
You will still enjoy a tooltip-free WordPress experience without violating SEO and accessibility best practices.
You can also download the plugin Hide titles on hover from the official WordPress repository. It’s an ultra-lightweight plugin, just activate it, no settings, no bloat.