{"id":3861,"date":"2019-01-17T12:56:21","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T12:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sitebeginner.com\/?p=3861"},"modified":"2019-01-17T12:56:21","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T12:56:21","slug":"how-to-disable-comments-in-wordpress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sitebeginner.com\/wordpress\/how-to-disable-comments-in-wordpress\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Disable Comments in WordPress"},"content":{"rendered":"
Comments are a notoriously mixed bag.<\/div>\n
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On the one hand, comments might improve the overall quality of an article or blog post by adding valuable conversation and first-hand accounts from people all over the world. They also give blog owners the opportunity to get feedback from and engage with their readers. But comments can also be fraught with spam, inaccurate information, or even hate speech.<\/div>\n
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As a WordPress blog owner, you'll need to decide whether you want to allow visitors to leave comments on your posts. Whether or not to allow comments might depend on the type of blog you write and the size of your audience. If your blog audience is larger, you're more likely to get many comments and thus more likely to get spam or negative comment content.<\/div>\n
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Blogs with smaller audiences may not have this problem, but if you have heavier traffic you will probably need to spend more time moderating your comments. If you do allow comments, be prepared to moderate them regularly and for the possibility of comments that don't contribute anything to your blog, regardless of the size of your audience.<\/p>\n

The good news is that WordPress makes it very simple to customize your comment options. You can adjust your comment options right from the dashboard, and WordPress allows blog owners to disable comments for only specific posts or on every post on your blog. This will prevent visitors from browsing back through your blog and posting comments on older posts even if you still want to allow users to comment on future posts that you publish.<\/p>\n

If you want to disable comments on all future blog posts, log in to your WordPress account and select the Settings link on your Dashboard, then go to Discussion. Under the heading Default Article Settings, you will see a few options, including one which allows visitors to post comments on your blogs.<\/p><\/div>\n

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By default, this option will be selected, so simply de-select it to disable comments on any future blog post. This will entirely restrict users from posting any comments on any of your future posts, so once you uncheck the box you're done unless you want to set more advanced comment options. Keep in mind that unchecking this option will leave comments that have already been left on your posts intact, so if you want to remove them you'll navigate to the Comments link on your Dashboard.<\/div>\n
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On this screen, you'll see all the comments that have been left on your blog. You'll choose each comment that you want to delete, then find the Bulk Actions dropdown menu. From there, choose “Move to Trash” and click on Apply to delete any comments that you've selected. Note that this action cannot be reversed, so take care if there are any comments that you do want to be left preserved.<\/p>\n

You can also moderate comments on individual blog posts. If you want to do this for multiple posts at once, click on the Posts section on your Dashboard and then click on the All Posts link. You can sort your posts by category, title, tag, or author to make finding specific posts easier. Simply select the posts whose comments you want to delete or restrict, then click the link that says Bulk Actions, click Edit, then click Apply. You should now see a Bulk Edit option, including a dropdown menu for comment options. Choose Do Not Allow and click Update to disable comments on any of the blog posts you selected.<\/p>\n

If you want to disable comments on posts individually, stay on the same screen, then click Edit Post. Underneath the area to enter the blog post, you'll see an area with the heading Discussion. Just de-select the “allow comments” option box to disable comments only on that post. This method is more tedious and time-consuming if you have multiple posts, but is a good way to quickly edit comment options for a few select posts.<\/p>\n

Finally, you may want to disallow visitors from commenting on media files as well. Even if you disable comments on an individual post, visitors can still comment on any media file that is attached to that post. If you want to prohibit visitors from commenting on media, go to your WordPress dashboard and click Media, then click Library. Choose the file that you want to prevent visitors from commenting on, and click Edit. You should find an editing box similar to the one used for text posts, and a checkbox for allowing comments. De-select the checkbox just as you did for a text post to disable comments on that media file.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Unfortunately, WordPress doesn't offer the ability to bulk edit media files to disable comments, but there is specially-written code available that you can add to your theme to enable this ability.<\/p>\n

Some WordPress blog owners may not want to disable comments outright but will need some options to prevent spam or disruptive comments. If you don't want to entirely disable comments on your blog, there are other options you can use to regulate your comments and make it more likely that comments contribute positively to the blog:<\/p>\n