How to Add / Remove Default Pages in WordPress Multisite

When you are running a WordPress multisite, each time a new site is created WordPress automatically adds a sample page to the new site. Recently, one of our users asked us if it was possible to remove the default sample page and add their own default pages. In this article, we will show you how to add / remove default pages in WordPress multisite.

Why Add Your Own Default Pages in WordPress Multisite?

There can be many reasons to replace the default sample page with your own. For example, you may want to add a page telling users what to do next.

The default sample page generated by WordPress is a little boring. Maybe you would like to add something witty and clever?

Lastly, you can use the default page to tell users the do’s and don’ts of your multisite network.

Adding / Removing Default Pages in WordPress

Simply add this code to your main site’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

add_action('wpmu_new_blog', 'wpb_create_my_pages', 10, 2);

function wpb_create_my_pages($blog_id, $user_id){
  switch_to_blog($blog_id);

// create new page
  $page_id = wp_insert_post(array(
    'post_title'     => 'About',
    'post_name'      => 'about',
    'post_content'   => 'This is an about page. Feel free to edit or delete this page.',
    'post_status'    => 'publish',
    'post_author'    => $user_id, // or "1" (super-admin?)
    'post_type'      => 'page',
    'menu_order'     => 1,
    'comment_status' => 'closed',
    'ping_status'    => 'closed',
 ));  
  
// Find and delete the WP default 'Sample Page'
$defaultPage = get_page_by_title( 'Sample Page' );
wp_delete_post( $defaultPage->ID );

  restore_current_blog();
}

The first part of this code inserts a new WordPress page titled ‘About’ whenever a new site is created on your multisite network. The second part of the code finds and deletes default WordPress Sample Page.

We hope this article helped you add / remove default pages in WordPress multisite network.

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