How to Translate or Customize “Continue reading” in WordPress

Antonio NEMCD Author

Published Dec 26, 2011 · Updated Nov 13, 2026 · 4 min

I had a WordPress blog with a translated theme where menus, templates, and most plugin strings were already localized, yet every post preview still showed an English “Continue reading” link instead of the translated button.

Link in theme

Naturally, I opened the theme files, found the phrase “Continue reading,” and replaced it – but nothing changed on the live site. Online threads gave conflicting advice: some suggested editing localization files, others told me to modify template loops, and none of it worked reliably for everyone. Below is what actually caused the issue in my case and all the clean ways to customize or translate this link in WordPress.

Why “Continue reading” Ignores Theme Translations

In my setup, the link text wasn’t coming from the theme at all – it was being overridden by the SEO Ultimate plugin inside wp-content/plugins/seo-ultimate/modules/more-links/more-links.php. As soon as I temporarily disabled that module, WordPress immediately switched back to the localized “Read more” text.

Editing plugin core files directly is a bad practice because the next update wipes out your changes. Depending on your site setup, the “Continue reading” string usually comes from one of three places: an SEO plugin, a WordPress filter hook, or the theme’s translation files.

Method 1. SEO Ultimate Settings

If you already use SEO Ultimate, you don’t need to touch any PHP code – the plugin includes a dedicated field in the dashboard.

Miscellaneous → More Link Customizer section inside SEO Ultimate settings

To change it in the admin panel:

• Open plugin settings: go to SEO → Miscellaneous (or open it from Module Manager).
• Locate the module: scroll down to More Link Customizer and find Default More Link Text.
• Set your custom label: enter the text you want (for example, Read more or Read more about "{post}", where {post} inserts the post title) and click Save Changes at the bottom.

There is no reason to install SEO Ultimate just for this one button – it is a large plugin and can conflict with other SEO tools like All in One SEO Pack. If you don’t run SEO Ultimate, use the lightweight code snippet below.

Method 2. Universal Code Snippet in functions.php (No Plugins)

Every WordPress theme that uses the standard <!--more--> tag passes the link HTML through the the_content_more_link filter hook. Adding a custom filter with a high priority (such as 99) in your child theme’s functions.php works on any WordPress site and overrides default priority-10 plugins.

Back up functions.php via FTP or SSH before editing, and add this snippet at the end of the file:

function my_more_link( $link ) {
    $url = get_permalink()
        . '#more-' . get_the_ID();
    return '<a class="more-link"'
        . ' href="' . esc_url( $url )
        . '">Read full article</a>';
}
add_filter(
    'the_content_more_link',
    'my_more_link',
    99
);

Many themes show automatic excerpts (the_excerpt()) on archive and home pages instead of content split by <!--more-->. If your theme outputs “Continue reading” at the end of excerpts, add a filter for excerpt_more as well:

function my_excerpt_more( $more ) {
    $url = get_permalink();
    return ' <a class="more-link"'
        . ' href="' . esc_url( $url )
        . '">Read full article</a>';
}
add_filter(
    'excerpt_more',
    'my_excerpt_more',
    99
);

Method 3. Theme PO/MO Files via Poedit or Loco Translate

If the string is properly wrapped in translation calls inside your theme (for example, __( 'Continue reading', 'theme-slug' )), translate it using the language files under wp-content/themes/your-theme/languages/:

• Using Poedit: download the .po or .pot file via FTP, open it in Poedit, locate Continue reading, enter your preferred wording, and save so Poedit compiles the .mo file. Upload both files back to the theme’s languages/ directory.
• Using Loco Translate: if you prefer working inside the WordPress admin, open your theme in Loco Translate, edit the “Continue reading” string, and save the compiled .mo file directly on the server.

Checklist if the Link Still Doesn’t Change

Readers often report that the text stays unchanged even after saving settings. Check these three common culprits:

• Site Language setting: go to Settings → General → Site Language and make sure your target language is selected rather than English (US).
• Page caching plugins: clear caches in WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, server/CDN cache, and hard-refresh the browser (Ctrl+F5).
• Hardcoded theme templates: older themes occasionally hardcode “Continue reading” without translation functions. On a server shell, you can pinpoint the exact file with:

grep -rn "Continue reading" \
  wp-content/themes/your-theme/

Hopefully these three approaches save you hours of trial and error and let you customize your WordPress read-more link cleanly :-)