diff --git a/projects/plugins/wpcomsh/changelog/DOTTHEM-343-footer-credit b/projects/plugins/wpcomsh/changelog/DOTTHEM-343-footer-credit
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..fbd84fadfc65
--- /dev/null
+++ b/projects/plugins/wpcomsh/changelog/DOTTHEM-343-footer-credit
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+Significance: patch
+Type: fixed
+
+Added word boundary to prevent replacing first instance of the word theme with an empty string when a theme doesn't have a valid style.css
diff --git a/projects/plugins/wpcomsh/footer-credit/footer-credit-optimizations.php b/projects/plugins/wpcomsh/footer-credit/footer-credit-optimizations.php
index 2d4eec64fc22..801bc25d6052 100644
--- a/projects/plugins/wpcomsh/footer-credit/footer-credit-optimizations.php
+++ b/projects/plugins/wpcomsh/footer-credit/footer-credit-optimizations.php
@@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ function wpcom_better_footer_links( $footer ) {
 	$theme_regex = array(
 		'(?:\s*\|\s*)?',       // Optional pipe with spaces (non-capturing)
 		'(?:<span\s[^>]+>)?',  // Optional opening span tag (non-capturing)
-		'(Theme|%s)',          // $1: "Theme" or the localized equivalent
+		'(\bTheme\b|%s)',      // $1: "Theme" or the localized equivalent (word boundaries prevent partial match)
 		'\s*(?:&nbsp;)?:?\s*', // Zero or more whitespace characters, an optional colon, zero or more whitespace characters
 		'(%s|<a[^>]+>%s</a>)', // $2: The theme name, or link
 		'\.?',                 // Optional period