Remove the More Link

Question

I am using the "more" quick tag to cut off articles from non-paying members - as in, they can only read the first few paragraphs or so. My setup works perfectly, and here's a snippet of the code that shows what content to show when a non-paying member views an article:

    } else { // They aren't in the paying group  
        global $more;
        $more = 0;
        the_content('<b>Interested in reading the rest of this article? You must be a subscriber to continue reading.</b>'); 
} 
?>

However, this is what the code outputs to the non-paying members. For my purposes, the link is unnecessary:

<p> <a href="http://website.com/2013/08/news-story/#more-30729" class="more-link"><b>Interested in reading the rest of this article? You must be a subscriber to continue reading.</b></a></p>

I was wondering if it is possible to remove the link so that it only outputs like this:

    <p><b>Interested in reading the rest of this article? You must be a subscriber to continue reading.</b></p>

Thank you!

Answer 1

You need a filter on the_content_more_link.

else { // They aren't in the paying group  
  function strip_more_link($link,$linktext) {
    remove_filter('the_content_more_link','strip_more_link',1);
    return $linktext;
  }
  add_filter('the_content_more_link','strip_more_link',1,2);
  global $more;
  $more = 0;
  the_content('<b>Interested in reading the rest of this article? You  just be a subscriber to continue reading.</b>'); 
} 

It may be more efficient, or neater, to write a check into the callback rather than add and remove the filter inside the Loop but I don't how your "paid" vs "not paid" subscribers are marked.