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Permo Docs

Active widgets

Widgets are content blocks that themes show in fixed areas, such as a sidebar or the footer: a search field, a list of recent posts, a newsletter form, a social media feed. Since WordPress 5.8, these areas can also hold blocks. Block themes don’t use widget areas at all; they build those parts of the page with blocks.

Why it matters

Section titled “Why it matters”

Widgets appear on many pages at once, often on every one. Whatever a widget does, it does everywhere its area is shown. A list of recent posts runs a database query for every page that WordPress builds; a social media feed or an embedded map loads scripts and content from another service.

A widget that’s saved isn’t necessarily visible: it may sit in an area the current theme doesn’t show, or be hidden by a display rule.

What influences it

Section titled “What influences it”

WordPress: The theme decides which widget areas exist and where they appear. Plugins add their own widgets. After a switch to another theme, widgets often end up unused, because the new theme has different areas.

Browser: Widgets that embed content from other services, such as feeds, maps, videos and chat, add requests and scripts to every page they appear on.

In Permo

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The Active widgets card is in System info, tab Content. It counts the widgets placed in widget areas, as WordPress has stored them. Widgets you moved to Inactive widgets aren’t included. Whether the current theme actually shows an area, Permo can’t tell, so a widget left in an area from an earlier theme still counts.

The number gives context; Permo doesn’t rate it.

Section titled “Related”

Sources