Comments are a great way to interact and understand your readers and website visitors. At the same time they add unique content on your website which helps with SEO.
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Why would someone want to disable comments?
While the comments section on your posts in WordPress is great, often they can lead to spam being posted on your website. The spam can be links to other websites or promotion of products. The issue is not limited to just spam. On many controversial subjects the comments section can be filled with hateful or triggering messages.
In such cases disabling the comments section is very important to prevent them from affecting your website negatively. As always WordPress allows us to disable comments easily either for specific posts or completely on the whole website.
Disable comments on specific posts or pages
Sometimes you might want to disable comments on a specific post or page. Below are steps to help you achieve that.
- Navigate to Posts -> All Posts from your admin dashboard.
- Click on the Edit button below the post you want to disable the comments on.
- On the right hand side there will be a Discussion meta box.
- Unselect the Allow Comments checkbox.
- Click the Update button.
Now no one will be able to comment on that post.
Similar steps can be followed to disable comments on a page.
Disable comments on all the future posts
- Navigate to Settings -> Discussion from your admin dashboard.
- Under Default post settings, uncheck the “Allow people to post comments on new articles” checkbox.
- Click the Save button.
Now all your future posts will have their comments section disabled.
Disable comments on all the older posts or pages in bulk
- Navigate to Posts -> All Posts from your admin dashboard.
- Select all the posts and now select the Edit option from the Bulk options drop down box.
- Click the Apply button.
- You will now see a Comments drop down. Select the Do not allow option from it.
- Click the Update button.
Disable comments using a plugin
In many cases the settings provided by WordPress might not be enough. In that case the Disable Comments plugin is a great option. Some of its features include:
- Ability to disable comments globally from all the post types, let it be posts, pages, attachments or any section that allows commenting.
- Remove the comment fields from any edit screen.
- Disable comments on the entire network if using multi site.
- Delete comments by their type.
Steps to disable comments using this plugin:
1. Navigate to Settings -> Disable Comments.
2. Select either Everywhere or on certain post types if you don’t want comments to be disabled for every post type.
3. Click the Save Changes button.
The comments should now be disabled globally from every part of your website depending on your selection.
Conclusion
While the comments section is an important part of your WordPress website, sometimes it is necessary to disable it. The above guide should help you solve any comments issue you might face.