Enable and Disable Comments in WordPress

One of the topics that have come up for me frequently in the past few days has been the spam on comments in WordPress. People sometimes try to use other people’s blogs to create back links to their sites that are not related. There are ways around this like using a plugin such as Disqus and making people register to comment.

Sometimes we simply don’t have time to deal with the comments and sift through the genuine comments as opposed to the spam or we want to have some comments.

There are 4 options:

1. Disable all comments on your WordPress site
2. Automatically close comments after a certain number of days
3. Disable comments on a page by page or post by post basis.
4. Bulk Edit from the List of Pages or Posts

1. Disable All Comments on New Pages or Posts

• Log into the WordPress Dashboard
• Under Settings, select Discussion
• Uncheck “Allow People to post comments on new articles” in the Default Settings section
• Save Changes

2. Automatically close comments after a certain number of days

• Log into the WordPress Dashboard
• Under Settings, select Discussion
• Check “Allow People to post comments on new articles”
• Under “Other comment settings”, Check “Automatically close comments on articles older than”
• Enter the number of days
• Save Changes at the bottom of the screen

3.  Disable comments on a page by page or post by post basis.

There are 2 options:

A. Within the Page or Post

• Navigate to the Page or Post where you want to disable the comments.
• At the top right hand corner click on the “Screen Options” drop down button.

• Check the Discussion box

• Scroll down underneath the text section of the page
• Uncheck “Allow comments”

• On the right hand sidebar of the page, remember to Update.

B. From the Page or Post List:

• From the WordPress Dashboard, navigate to the list of Pages or Posts.
• Hover over the name of the page or post that you want to edit.
• A menu will appear underneath. Choose Quick Edit.
• Uncheck “Allow Comments”.
• Update.

4. Bulk Edit from the List of Pages or Posts

From the WordPress Dashboard, Select Pages / All Pages

Check the Pages or Posts that you want to Edit.

At the top of the list change the drop down menu from Bulk Actions to Edit

• Click “Apply”

• You can change several settings here. Change the comments to “Do not allow”.
• Update