List everything the demo import created, sorted by date, then replace or delete every leftover page, post, testimonial, image and footer credit, and redirect or remove any demo page search engines have already found.

Pieces of someone else's website

A purchased theme usually comes with a demo: a complete sample website, with pages, posts, images and menus, that shows the design at its best.

Most themes can import the whole demo in one click. It is a quick way to start, because every layout arrives already built.

The trouble is what stays behind. The designer replaces the content on the pages in the menu, the site launches, and the rest of the demo quietly stays published.

Months later a customer finds a page of Latin, or a glowing review from someone who never existed.

What usually survives

The second matters beyond embarrassment. A testimonial is a statement that a customer said something, and invented ones on a real business's site mislead the people reading them.

Canada's rules on misleading advertising cover testimonials too, and they make no exception for websites.

How the demo got there

A demo import creates far more than a business needs: often dozens of pages, sample posts, team members, testimonials, portfolio items, contact forms and hundreds of images.

The designer works through the menu, replacing each page's content. Anything not in the menu is out of sight, and easy to forget.

But out of the menu is not the same as unpublished. Those pages still have addresses, still appear in the site's sitemap, and are often linked from demo widgets in a sidebar or footer.

Why visitors notice

A visitor who lands on a page of Latin concludes the site was never finished. One who sees a team page full of strangers wonders who will actually turn up.

A pricing table with packages you do not sell, in a currency you do not use, invites an awkward phone call.

None of it is intended to deceive. It still reads as careless, at exactly the moment someone is deciding whether to trust you.

A worked example

A two-person DJ service for weddings and office parties launched a site built on a nightlife theme, starting from the theme's one-click demo.

The home page, the services page and the contact page were rewritten. Nobody looked further.

Eight months later a couple phoned to ask about one of the DJs on the team page. There were five. Three were stock photographs with invented names, imported with the demo, beside the two real owners.

A search for the business name also turned up an events page listing club nights in a city the business had never played, and a questions page written entirely in lorem ipsum.

The fix took an afternoon. Everything that came with the import was listed, the real pieces kept and the rest deleted, two pages were redirected to the services page, and the footer credit went.

Finding every leftover

Start in the WordPress dashboard. Under Pages and under Posts, sort by date. Demo items usually keep the dates they had on the theme author's site, or all share the import date, so they cluster apart from your own pages.

Then open the extra sections a theme adds to the dashboard menu, such as Team, Testimonials, Portfolio or Events. Each holds its own demo items.

Check the widgets in every sidebar and footer area, the media library, and any menus that are not assigned to a location.

Look at sliders as well. One on an inner page may still be cycling through the theme's sample photographs and headlines.

Finally, search Google for site:yourdomain.com followed by lorem, and read through the site's sitemap. That shows what search engines can see.

Replace or remove

For each leftover, ask whether the business needs a page like it.

A questions page is worth having, so it gets real questions and answers. An events page for a business with no public events goes. A team page keeps only real people, in real photographs.

Testimonials go unless they can be replaced by real ones, from real customers who have agreed to be quoted.

Look at the forms too. A second contact form, imported with the demo and sending to an address nobody checks, is worse than none.

Pages search engines already found

The Search Analytics report in Search Console shows which pages have been appearing in results, a quick way to see which demo pages people have actually come across.

Deleting a page Google has already indexed leaves a search result that leads to an error, at least for a while.

Where a demo page has a sensible replacement, redirect its address there with a permanent redirect. Otherwise let it return a not found error, and it will drop out of results.

For anything embarrassing, Search Console's Remove URLs tool takes a page out of results quickly while it drops out properly. Then check that the sitemap no longer lists it.

Images nobody licensed

Demo images are a separate question. Many themes use photographs licensed for the author's demo only, not for every site that buys the theme.

The theme's documentation usually says which images may be kept. Where it does not, assume they may not, and replace them with your own photographs or images you have licensed.

Stock photographs of people are a further problem. Even when properly licensed, they should never be presented as your staff.

The counter-case

A theme installed without the demo import has far fewer leftovers, though the footer credit and WordPress's own sample post and page still deserve a check.

And not everything from a demo is a problem. Layouts, colour settings and page structures are what the theme was bought for, and keeping them is the point.

The words and pictures are what must be yours: list everything the import created, keep what is real, and remove the rest.

The clean-up

  1. Sort pages and posts by date created.
  2. Open every theme section in the dashboard menu.
  3. Search Google for your domain and lorem.
  4. Delete invented testimonials and stock team members.
  5. Redirect indexed demo pages to real replacements.
  6. Check the licence of every demo image.
  7. Remove the theme credit from the footer.

Step one finds most of it. The demo arrived in a single import, so its items share dates that are not your own, and a sorted list turns a vague worry into a checklist.

Another fashion that often arrives with a theme is covered in ghost buttons on top of photographs.

Frequently asked questions

Why does demo content stay on a site?

A one-click demo import creates dozens of pages and items. The designer replaces what is in the menu, and everything else stays published, out of sight.

How do I find leftover demo pages?

Sort pages and posts by date in the dashboard, where demo items cluster on dates that are not your own, and search Google for your domain followed by lorem.

Are sample testimonials from a theme a problem?

Yes. They are invented quotes presented as customers on a real business's site. Replace them with real testimonials from customers who agreed to be quoted, or remove them.

What about demo pages Google has indexed?

Redirect each one to a sensible real page, or let it return not found. Search Console's Remove URLs tool takes embarrassing ones out of results quickly.

Can I keep the theme's demo images?

Only if the theme's licence allows it. Many demo photographs are licensed for the author's demo alone, so assume they are not yours until the documentation says otherwise.

Should the theme credit stay in the footer?

Usually not. Most themes let you remove it in their options, and on a finished business site it adds nothing for customers and reads as a leftover.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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