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WPBeginner» Blog» Beginners Guide» How to Add Titles in WordPress Menu Without Linking to a Page

How to Add Titles in WordPress Menu Without Linking to a Page

Last updated on June 14th, 2013 by Editorial Staff
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How to Add Titles in WordPress Menu Without Linking to a Page

Recently one of our users asked us if there was a way to add titles in WordPress menu without adding a link. By default, WordPress menu requires each menu item linked to a page or custom link. However when creating a drop down menu, you may you want to add a title for sub-menus without linking it to a specific page. For example, you can have a categories dropdown where you want to have the text categories be the title of the menu. In this article, we will show you how to add titles in WordPress menu without linking to a page.

Creating a menu item without link

First thing you need to do is add a new menu item in your menu. You can do that by going to Appearance » Menus. You want to add a custom link so give it the label you want. In the URL field, enter the # sign. Once done, click on the Add to Menu button. Save your menu once this custom link is added to the menu.

Adding a custom link to the menu without URL

Now click on the drop down arrow next to this custom link to edit this menu item. Go ahead and remove the pound sign from the URL field and save your menu. If you go to your live website, then you will see a menu item without link. You can add sub menus to this menu item and link them to any page or custom link you want.

Removing # sign and creating a menu without any link

We hope that this article helped you add titles in WordPress menu without linking to a page or any URL. If you have any feedback or questions, then please leave a comment below.

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67 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Lisa says:
    Dec 31, 2017 at 2:33 pm

    Thank you so much! I was starting to tear my hair out. One of the challenges is knowing how to describe the thing you’re having a problem with, and I’m so glad I found your step by step guide.

    Worked a treat!

    Reply
  2. Susie says:
    Sep 23, 2017 at 1:04 am

    For some reason, it won’t “add to menu”. I get an endless spinning timer that never resolves. Any clues as to why it won’t add to menu after I create the custom link and push the add button?
    Thank you!

    Reply
  3. David Phillips says:
    Aug 14, 2017 at 10:14 am

    Thanks much for the fix to create menu headings. Now, how can I create links in pages TO the menu heading? For example, I create a POSTS heading with the latest few POST pages under it. Elsewhere in the site I want to refer people NOT to a specific POST but to the list of POSTS, that is, the menu heading.

    Maybe there is a sidebar fix to embed the POSTS list on ONE page.

    Now suppose I have non-post pages, such as CLASSES. I want to link to the CLASSES heading, not a specific CLASS. I don’t want to have to maintain an empty menu placeholder page just to show the individual links.

    Thoughts?

    Reply
  4. Joe says:
    Jul 13, 2017 at 5:27 am

    Thanks for this, it worked a treat!

    Reply
  5. christian says:
    Jul 8, 2017 at 10:20 am

    Awesome!
    Many thanks to you – it worked fine. ;)

    Reply
  6. Mohsin Sharif Qureshi says:
    Jul 8, 2017 at 3:23 am

    THANK YOU SO MUCH!!
    My client required this, he ordered me to add some page like this:
    Area (Tab) and under it add some cities like (London,Liverpool,Loards)
    Its exactly worked for me, thank you so much again

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jul 9, 2017 at 10:34 am

      Hey Mohsin,

      You are welcome :)

      Reply
  7. Sara P says:
    Jun 21, 2017 at 7:39 pm

    YES! Thank you! Totally works.

    Reply
  8. Collin Blatt says:
    Jun 21, 2017 at 3:47 pm

    I’ve done as you’ve suggested, but the menu item redirects to an undefine page when clicked.

    Reply
  9. pasquale says:
    Jun 2, 2017 at 8:06 pm

    Thank you very much, it works!

    Reply
  10. Mars says:
    Apr 28, 2017 at 2:13 pm

    AMAZING ! Thank you worked perfectly

    Reply
  11. Marit says:
    Apr 27, 2017 at 6:00 pm

    Thank you! This was exactly the information I needed!

    Reply
  12. Ken says:
    Mar 27, 2017 at 2:05 pm

    Just what I needed.
    I was scratching my head wondering how I would be able to do this.
    Then I came across this article, thank you very much.

    Reply
  13. Jon says:
    Mar 16, 2017 at 12:17 pm

    This worked great, thanks!

    Reply
  14. Petur Kirke says:
    Mar 3, 2017 at 2:43 am

    One small thing missing in this article.
    How to get rid of the hand (cursor: pointer), or is it only me, who have this problem ?

    Reply
  15. Scot says:
    Mar 1, 2017 at 5:20 pm

    I’ve used this type of custom link in the top level of my primary menu, and it works great on the desktop. But on mobile devices, when I tap the custom link, it doesn’t open the sub menus below it, so none of those pages are available. Is there a way to fix that?

    Reply
  16. adnan says:
    Feb 28, 2017 at 9:04 am

    this was helpful thanks

    Reply
  17. Hamba Allah says:
    Feb 16, 2017 at 2:12 am

    thank you soo much :*

    Reply
  18. Luis Casanova says:
    Feb 2, 2017 at 10:28 pm

    Thank you!
    Just what I needed!

    Reply
  19. Steve says:
    Jan 12, 2017 at 3:53 pm

    I added a title to my web site menu as you suggested using the # method but needed to remove it. I did so on Dashboard but it still shows on my site main menu and when opened it says “blank page” and that it is unsecure. How do it remove it.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jan 12, 2017 at 7:47 pm

      If you are using a caching plugin then please delete cached files. Also visit Menus screen to make sure that you have deleted the menu item. Don’t forget to click on the save menu item after removing or adding an item to the menu. Hope this helps.

      Reply
  20. Pam Hill says:
    Dec 19, 2016 at 12:37 pm

    I have an existing menu that I need to remove page links from. How do I do that? I have 3 titles in the header that link to its own page. I do not want it to link to any page.

    Reply
  21. Danielle says:
    Nov 1, 2016 at 12:05 am

    OMG this was a life saver and I’d wish I found this about 6 mos ago….I’ve been trying to figure this out for the longest time. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

    Reply
  22. Brendan Dunne says:
    Oct 21, 2016 at 4:13 am

    I used this method to solve my problem and it works great thanks.

    However, the created menu header is not a page so when I go to map the sub pages, how do I structure them?

    Reply
  23. Marek says:
    Aug 9, 2016 at 1:37 am

    Hello,

    I created a custom menu item in which I want to function as a label only, so I deleted the URL from that item, but it still shows a different color on mouse-over as if it was a link. How do I disable that hover effect from that item?

    You can see it here: and the item is the ‘Written About Braunstein’s:’ in the menu below the logo.

    Thanks

    Reply
    • Susan Taunton says:
      Jan 16, 2017 at 1:27 pm

      This is in response to Marek’s August 9th question about how to remove the hover effect from a non-linked menu title:

      Marek,

      You can use the browser development tool to identify that title’s menu-item-number and then use css to define the link, visited, hover, focus, active colors to all be the same and so remove the hover effect.

      Example:
      #menu-item-2036 a,
      #menu-item-2036 a:link,
      #menu-item-2036 a:visited,
      #menu-item-2036 a:hover,
      #menu-item-2036 a:focus,
      #menu-item-2036 a:active {
      color:#C1A45B;
      }

      Susan

      Reply
  24. Huzni Saud says:
    Aug 8, 2016 at 10:57 am

    great work mate

    Reply
  25. Penelope Whiteley says:
    Aug 3, 2016 at 5:40 pm

    I didn’t understand this … are there any more images that maybe show the finished product?

    Reply
  26. Norbert says:
    May 22, 2016 at 8:29 am

    Thanks, it is brilliant and works!!!!

    Reply
  27. WILLIAM says:
    May 10, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    Thank you, it works like a charm.

    Reply
  28. Rui says:
    Apr 16, 2016 at 6:50 am

    Using Appearance>Menus,create a Custom Links item with the URL as

    javascript: void(0);

    This is the a great way of solving that problem :)

    Reply
  29. Peter says:
    Mar 29, 2016 at 7:22 am

    This has bugged my for a while but never did anything about it. Googled and bingo, sorted. So simple thank you.

    Reply
  30. Annelisse Miller says:
    Mar 27, 2016 at 12:24 am

    Worked Perfect! So easy to follow! Thank you!

    Reply
  31. teri matelson says:
    Mar 25, 2016 at 3:45 pm

    can you make a custom link, added to the primary navigation, open in a new window?

    Reply
  32. Matthias says:
    Mar 20, 2016 at 4:58 pm

    Thanks – really helpful!

    Reply
  33. Rajit says:
    Dec 17, 2015 at 2:49 am

    Hi, How do I modify the styling of custom links? I want to separate two sets of menu items with separate non-clickable headings.

    Thanks

    Reply
  34. Graham says:
    Nov 18, 2015 at 11:14 am

    Cheers for that. We were really stuck. Knew it could be done, but didn’t know how…until now. Yer a star :)

    Reply
  35. Rosie says:
    Sep 15, 2015 at 4:49 am

    Thank you!! This is exactly what I needed to do and it has worked a treat.
    Rosie

    Reply
  36. Sanjay Nair says:
    Sep 11, 2015 at 7:20 am

    So simple! Just what I needed. Thank you.

    Reply
  37. Hayley says:
    Sep 3, 2015 at 3:34 am

    Thank you! Exactly what I needed!

    Reply
  38. Carol M. Smith says:
    Aug 18, 2015 at 4:43 pm

    Thanks … but I do not want the words “Menu Item” to be in the menu … Can I change the name “Menu Items” ?

    Reply
  39. Leanne says:
    Jul 21, 2015 at 10:07 pm

    exactly what I needed to know! thank you!!

    Reply
  40. Bob Varaleau says:
    Apr 28, 2015 at 12:17 pm

    I was using categories to do this but this is much better. There is one problem that you might be able to help me with.

    If a viewer was to click on the custom link the custom menu link will remain high lighted until you click on a sub item or some where else on the page. It is a minor thing but if it could be rectified it would make this fix for the menu even better. Is it possible to make this custom link menu button non-clickable using CSS??

    Reply
  41. Menno van der Krift says:
    Feb 26, 2015 at 4:57 am

    Cheers! Works like a charm.

    Reply
  42. Mike says:
    Feb 13, 2015 at 10:35 am

    Oddly this doesn’t work on the iPad. Before the submenu can appear, it asks if you want to save the image? Works perfectly well when the drop down button has a normal page link, i.e, the menu item is drawn from ‘Pages’.

    Reply
  43. George says:
    Dec 17, 2014 at 6:39 am

    This is great – it works. However, the title of my drop-down menu has changed colour – from white to blue. Can anyone explain how I can correct this in wordpress?

    Reply
  44. jhodgski says:
    Aug 7, 2014 at 6:05 am

    Thanks for this, but wouldn’t it result in invalid HTML as I see you end up with an anchor/link element which has no href attribute. It would also be semantically incorrect to use and anchor/link element if the item isn’t actually a link. Is there a better way?

    Reply
  45. viktoriana says:
    Jun 2, 2014 at 3:46 pm

    This didn’t work in my case :/ Have “converted” a menu which was a ul list of links into a registered wp_nav_menu and now the categories which where listed as wp_list_categories do NOT appear under the custom link as they used to. Somehow wp_list_categories has to be added still into the wp_nav_menu , and it’s not at all that simple as this post suggests. :/

    Reply
  46. viktoriana says:
    Jun 2, 2014 at 2:33 pm

    except this is not working :( followed exactly what you’ve written, added two categories us subpages, but submenu is not showing.
    there must be some wp_list_categories thingy messing up my wp_nav_menu …

    Reply
  47. bb says:
    May 26, 2014 at 1:10 pm

    I love wpbeginner! Thanks for this tweak, cheers

    Reply
  48. Rob Lowndes says:
    Jan 24, 2014 at 2:37 am

    Just what I am looking for. But when I place some pages as sub items under the new blank menu item it looks great until I save the menu and then those pages autmatically revert to the main menu! In other words WP 3.7.1 is not allowing me to save any sub menus to the new item. Can someone help me?

    Reply
  49. Wayne Gerald says:
    Dec 15, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    I did this on my extensive training website. However, I ran out of custom links, meaning I reached WordPress’s custom link limit. Going past this limit, the navigation menu no longer saves. So how do bypass this custom link limit? Is there a plugin? If so, I can’t find it.

    Any help would be much, much appreciated.

    Reply
    • Joe Dean says:
      Jul 31, 2015 at 11:52 am

      You’ve probably solved this by now but, for anyone else reading this:
      http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-custom-menu-items-limit-in-wordpress/

      Reply
  50. kuldip says:
    Dec 5, 2013 at 11:54 pm

    Thanx dude it’s helpful for me

    Reply
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