default coming soon page is not displayed correctly

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  mariekerinkema · Member · Jan 31, 2026 at 12:56 pm

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  The vertical gray rectangle on the left is not correct. How can I fix this?

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  james3265166 · Member · Jan 31, 2026 at 4:26 pm

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  That vertical gray rectangle on your site is almost certainly a placeholder for a sidebar that has no content or a “Featured Image” that hasn’t been set yet. To fix it, go to Appearance > Customize and look for your Layout or Sidebar settings; changing the page to a “Full Width” or “No Sidebar” layout will usually snap the main content across the whole screen and delete that gray void. If the layout is already correct, the issue is likely a CSS conflict or a caching glitch, which you can test by performing a hard refresh (Cmd+Shift+R or Ctrl+F5) or by adding a line of “Additional CSS” to hide that specific background element manually.

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  mariekerinkema · Member · Feb 2, 2026 at 11:24 am

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  Thanks for your answer. The gray rectangle is indeed probably the placeholder for the menu in the website. But the problem here is that it is visible in the default coming soon page (Site visibility is set to ‘Coming soon’). As far as I know I have no control over this Coming soon page. Is there a way to reset this?

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  james3265166 · Member · Feb 2, 2026 at 3:11 pm

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  Since you have the “Coming Soon” mode active on a WordPress.com site, that gray rectangle is likely a leftover “widget” area or sidebar container from your active theme that the default landing page is trying to display. You can actually modify this by going to Appearance > Editor (if you’re using a block theme) and selecting the “Coming Soon” Template under the Templates menu, which allows you to manually click on and delete any stray gray blocks or sidebar columns. If you are on a Business or Commerce plan and using the built-in WooCommerce visibility settings, you can edit the specific “Coming Soon” page via WooCommerce > Settings > Site Visibility, where clicking “Edit Page” lets you customize the layout and remove the placeholder entirely. If the rectangle persists, it is a theme-level background glitch that can be hidden by adding a line of CSS like .coming-soon-sidebar { display: none; } in the Additional CSS section of the Customizer, which effectively “turns off” that specific gray element until you are ready to launch.