Comments add value to your blog in many ways. They help convert monologues into discussions and build a community around your posts. Consider the Spectrum Internet section on their site. It is full of user comments and discussions involving the services offered. This not only creates healthy activity on a website but also provides a minor boost to SEO. Many search engines now index comments when ranking pages. Comments also can help make or break new sales with new visitors. With all these benefits, one might wonder why anyone would want to disable comments. This is discussed below:
Why you might want to disable comments:
People and websites are often forced to disable comments on their posts for the following reasons:
- Websites often get comments on posts by the truckload. This involves a lot of manpower in moderating and checking the comments. One of the ways websites like CNN have worked around this is shifting comments to social media platforms. This takes away negative comments from the post and does not directly impact it. Also, most social media has some form of self-regulation so inappropriate comments get filtered out.
- Comments slow down a website’s loading time. This is because each separate comment requires a separate database request. If you have a large number of comments, the load time on these will accumulate. This will ultimately slow down the overall loading time for your website.
- People often resort to various plugins to manage their comments better if comments are an important part of their blog.
- Many websites are forced to create forums if they are receiving too many comments. Forums enable discussion and community building without impacting your blog.
Disable WordPress Comments using the Dashboard
The default setting on WordPress is to enable comments on all posts while disabling comments on all pages. This can be changed to enable/disable comments either completely or on selected posts or pages. The options in the “Settings” page also allows you the freedom to manage comments in the ways discussed below. Comment management can be done in the “Discussions” tab under “Settings” or Settings>Discussions. Let’s see how:
- Stop all comments on all future posts/pages
Under “Discussions”, you will need to uncheck “allow people to post comments on articles”. This section also allows you to disable trackbacks or pingbacks. Unchecking this option will disable pings and comments completely on all future posts you make. Bear in mind that pages are, by default, disabled. You can also allow comments on individual posts if you wish to. To do this, you will have to change the “Discussion” settings for the individual posts.
2. Stop all comments on existing posts
All problems are not solved by simply following the first step. You will not be able to stop comments on your published posts or pages until you follow this step. Visit “Dashboard” and head to “Comments”. In this section, you can simply select all the comments you want to remove. After that, you click on “Bulk Actions”, select “Move to Trash” and then click on “Apply”. You published posts are now safe from comments.
3. Stop comments in bulk on selected posts/pages
You will need to head on over to the “All Posts” section. Over here, you will need to select all posts you want to delete comments for. Once done, click on “Bulk Actions”, “Edit” and finally “Apply”. Once you do this, a “Bulk Edit” option will open which allows you to select “Do not Allow” for comments. By default, you will be restricted to selecting 20 posts at a time.
4. Stop comments on existing individual posts
You will again need to go to “All Posts” and select the specific post, then click on “Edit Post”. You will see the “Discussion” heading right under the writing area. If you aren’t seeing this, enable “Discussion” from “Screen Options”. Uncheck the option “Allow Comments” and the comments will be disabled for that specific post. Alternatively, you can use “Quick Edit” and achieve the same result.
5. Stop comments on media files
Even after all these steps, posts may continue to receive comments on media files. An attachment file is created every time you upload an image with a post. Even if comments on the post itself have been disabled, this attachment will continue to receive them. To disable these comments, you will need to go to “Media Library” and click “Edit” after selecting the media file. A “Discussion” box will appear from which you can disable contents for that media file.
These are 5 steps which you can easily take to disable content on your pages and posts. However, there are also certain other options available that you can look into. Some of these are:
- Requiring moderator approval before publishing comments, which lets you filter out comments as well as prevent spam or bots. Many business pages, including Charter Spectrum Phone Number, follow this practice.
- Blacklist known malicious IPs, usernames and emails to keep your comments clean.
- Require registration before commenting, to weed out spammers.
- Limit the number of links that can be added to a comment.
- Be notified of new comments and swiftly act on ones you don’t want
In conclusion, enabling or disabling comments is a personal preference. Do it after giving due considerations to the advantages and disadvantages to your WordPress site. Hopefully, this blog will have shown you how to go about it.