{"id":30190,"date":"2022-11-04T21:16:04","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T21:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/articles\/how-to-delete-a-wordpress-site-in-6-steps\/"},"modified":"2024-12-16T08:31:20","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T08:31:20","slug":"how-to-delete-a-wordpress-site-in-6-steps","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/articles\/how-to-delete-a-wordpress-site-in-6-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Delete a WordPress Site in 6 Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Luckily, we have put together a straightforward guide showing you how you can permanently remove your WordPress website from the web. Once you have done everything in this guide, all traces of your website will soon be gone entirely from the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"why-would-you-want-to-delete-a-wordpress-website\">Why Would You Want to Delete a WordPress Website?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p>Removing your website from the internet is a big step. Once this is done, nobody will be able to view it again, so you must be absolutely sure you want to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there are some situations when deleting your website is the right thing to do. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Your website is not as successful as you hoped it would be.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You are no longer interested in the website\u2019s topic.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You don\u2019t have the time to maintain the website.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You want to start a new website or merge this website into another one.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Whatever your reason for deleting your website, if you are sure you want to proceed, here are the steps to do it.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"a-stepbystep-guide-to-deleting-your-wordpress-website\">A Step-By-Step Guide to Deleting Your WordPress Website<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading style-title-numecal\" id=\"backup-your-website\"><strong>Backup your website<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Although you need to be sure before you delete your website, you never know whether you might eventually change your mind. You might one day decide you want to resurrect the site. So, it\u2019s good to make a full backup of your website before you proceed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are various ways you can do this, but the quickest and easiest is to use a plugin. There are <a href=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/blog\/best-wordpress-backup-plugins\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">many WordPress backup plugins<\/a> available. In just a few clicks, you can do a complete backup of your WordPress website for free and upload it to cloud storage such as Google Drive or Dropbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"489\" src=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/updraftplus-plugin-1024x489.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/updraftplus-plugin-2x-scaled.jpg 2x\" alt=\"updraftplus plugin\" class=\"wp-image-46389\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading style-title-numecal\" id=\"delete-your-websites-files\"><strong>Delete your website\u2019s files<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So, now you have your website fully backed up, we can proceed with the first step of actually deleting your website \u2013 deleting the files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The easiest way to do this is through your web host\u2019s administration interface. This is likely to be cPanel, so we will use that example here, as provided by a hosting company such as SiteGround. However, your particular cPanel may look a bit different.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, you need to log in using the username and password for your hosting account and then access the cPanel. Then go to <strong><em>Site &gt; File Manager<\/em><\/strong>, and click your site\u2019s root directory. This could be called \u201c<strong>htdocs<\/strong>\u201d or \u201c<strong>www<\/strong>\u201d, but in this example, it is \u201c<strong>public_html<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Select everything within this folder and delete it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"663\" src=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/delete-website-files-1024x663.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/delete-website-files-2x.jpg 2x\" alt=\"delete website files\" class=\"wp-image-46390\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"delete-your-websites-database\">Delete your website\u2019s database<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>You would be forgiven for thinking that you are done once you have deleted your website\u2019s files. But there is another vital component to your website \u2013 the database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can also delete this from within your cPanel by going to \u201c<strong>Databases<\/strong>\u201d and then \u201c<strong>MySQL<\/strong>\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"165\" src=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/delete-database-1024x165.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/delete-database-2x.png 2x\" alt=\"delete database\" class=\"wp-image-46392\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Find the database for your website, then click \u201c<strong>Delete<\/strong>\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"261\" src=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/delete-database-button-1024x261.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/delete-database-button-2x.png 2x\" alt=\"delete database button\" class=\"wp-image-46393\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>You also need to make sure you delete any users that are associated with the database. To do this, go to \u201c<strong>Users<\/strong>\u201d on the same page and click \u201c<strong>Delete<\/strong>\u201d next to the users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"222\" src=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/delete-user-button-1024x222.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/delete-user-button-2x-scaled.jpg 2x\" alt=\"delete user button\" class=\"wp-image-46394\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>So, that\u2019s the files and database deleted, but we are still not quite finished yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading style-title-numecal\" id=\"delete-your-websites-domain-name\"><strong>Delete your website\u2019s domain name<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Your web host will have instructions for doing this. For example, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.siteground.com\/kb\/how-do-i-delete-website\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">here is the SiteGround guide<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, there you go, you have deleted your website. However, there are still a couple more things we need to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"remove-your-website-from-the-search-results\">Remove your website from the search results<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Although you have completely deleted your website, it can still turn up in searches. Google is the most popular search engine, so we will show you how you can delete your website from its results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thankfully, Google provides a way to remove a website from its search results for up to six months. Once those six months are up, if your website still doesn\u2019t exist, it won\u2019t return to the search results anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You will need to use the Google Search Console. From there, go to \u201c<strong>Removals<\/strong>\u201d and click \u201c<strong>New Request<\/strong>\u201d under the Temporary Removals tab:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"799\" height=\"424\" src=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/temporary-removals-tab.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/temporary-removals-tab-2x.jpg 2x\" alt=\"temporary removals tab\" class=\"wp-image-46396\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Then enter the address of your website and click \u201c<strong>Next<\/strong>\u201d. Google should remove your website from its search results shortly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two other popular search sites are Yahoo and Bing. Bing also powers Yahoo search, so you can remove your website from both sites by using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bing.com\/webmasters\/help\/?topicid=264e560b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Bing\u2019s Block URLs tool<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, you have now deleted your website\u2019s files, database, and domain and removed it from the search results. But there is still one final step if you want to ensure nobody ever finds your website again.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading style-title-numecal\" id=\"delete-your-website-from-the-internet-archive\"><strong>Delete your website from the internet archive<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Internet Archive<\/a> keeps archives of many websites going back years. This is a powerful tool if you ever want to find any old information that\u2019s no longer on a website or look back at old websites that have since disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this also means that your website has probably been archived too. For example, if we search the archive for <em>crocoblock.com<\/em>, we can see it has archived it all the way back to 2014:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"521\" src=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/website-archive-1024x521.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/website-archive-2x-scaled.jpg 2x\" alt=\"website archive\" class=\"wp-image-46398\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>If you want your website removed from the internet archive, you will need to email them and ask them to remove it.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>So, now you know how to delete a WordPress website.&nbsp; I hope you found our guide on how to delete a WordPress website helpful.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are you wondering how you can delete a WordPress website? Unfortunately, there is not magic button you can press called \u201cDelete WordPress Website\u201d, and simply uninstalling WordPress won\u2019t completely remove your website from the internet either. There are a few more steps to the process than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"template":"","format":"standard","builder-category":[],"article-category":[349,269],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Delete a WordPress Website? - Crocoblock<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Do you want to delete your WordPress site or blog? We have put together a straightforward guide showing you how you can permanently remove your WordPress website from the web.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crocoblock.com\/knowledge-base\/articles\/how-to-delete-a-wordpress-site-in-6-steps\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Delete a WordPress Website? - Crocoblock\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Do you want to delete your WordPress site or blog? 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