For some of the websites you create, comments are completely unnecessary. Sometimes it’s a matter of not wanting people to comment on your pages. So see how to disable comments on the WordPress website easily in this guide & tutorial.
There are two types of blogs worldwide: those that allow comments and those that don’t. And if you follow the no-comment route, you’ve got some pretty good options to get those comments disabled.
Depending on how much control you want over it and how widespread you need the disabling, there are built-in WordPress comment controls and (free) third-party options.
Disable Comments in WordPress
While there is a plugin for everything in WordPress, much of the functionality for this use case is built into the core of WordPress itself. To disable WordPress comments in the most basic and straightforward way, go into the Settings tab of your WP admin panel and head into Discussion. Here you will see most of the comments-related controls.
What you’re mainly looking for is Allow people to post comments on new articles (#3). If you uncheck this box, you won’t even have a spot for people to comment on recent articles. Not even a message saying comments are closed. Simply nothing.
You will not, however, remove any comment sections from old articles. So this is only good if you want to disable WordPress comments on new sites or from a certain point moving forward.
Also, note the boxed area in the image above: if you want to disable comments on posts based on their age, you can check this box and set the period to however short or long you want. This option will not remove comments.
However. It will simply remove the ability to post anything and give the user a message that comments are closed for that post.
Both of these also apply to Pages in WordPress as well.
Quick Edit
If you want a little finer control than what the Discussion page gives you, the All Posts or All Pages menu will be your next stop. Once there, hit Quick Edit and look to the right.
You will see a checkbox for Allow Comments and one for Allow Pings. If you have disabled comments on the Discussion page, this will be unchecked (provided it was posted after you hit save). If not, you can uncheck this to disable the comments section for the post or page.
When Allow Pings is enabled, a comment with that link (the pingback/trackback) will appear as a comment anytime someone links to this page/post. You can disable that individually here or on the Discussion page as well.
Be mindful, as well, that you can also enable comments for specific posts, too. So if you have a particular article you want to discuss, you can let it be a one-off using this setting.
Editing Post or Page
And finally, you can go into the post or page itself and disable the comments section there, too. (Or do so before the post is present, which may be more likely with this feature.)
If you go into any post or page’s edit panel, you will notice the Screen Options toggle at the top-right of the screen. Click it to expand the options of what meta-boxes you have shown on the edit page. One of them is Discussion. (Yes, there is one with the name of Comments, too.
But it only displays comments and allows you to respond. You can’t disable them that way.) Make sure that you have the Discussion checked. Doing so will display the meta-box underneath your editor pane (the Divi Builder in this example).
In the Discussion meta-box, you have the same options to disable WordPress comments here as you did in Quick Edit. So keep them checked or unchecked based on your preferences for this post and when it was published. Hit Update, and you’re good to hear nothing from your readers.
Disable Comments WordPress Plugin
While the built-in methods of controlling comments are simple, easy, and valuable, they don’t give a lot of subtle control over where and when you have discussions.
What if you want threads on your op-ed pieces but not on your news posts? Well, this plugin has you covered So head over and download it from the WordPress repository.
Once installed and activated, you will see a new banner on your screen. Don’t worry.
Nothing is wrong. You have to configure what you want content you want comments hidden on.
So hit the link to the Configuration Page in the banner, and you’ll see precisely how simple this plugin is and why it’s a good choice if you want a slightly different route than the core options.
Your options here are simple, easy, and straightforward. You can: disable comments everywhere/disable comments on certain post types.
For Free
That’s it. You don’t get the nuanced control of individual posts, but you get them in vast swaths. See, you can set up any Custom Post Type you want and then use that to manage comments. You can limit them from posts already or maybe from pages alone.
Remember that Disable Comments works in large swaths, so you can’t go in on a single post or page to enable or disable comments. It’s all or nothing with this plugin, as it overrides the default comment functions. They don’t appear in your dashboard anymore.
With this, you get no message or filler text. The comment section isn’t there. Like they never existed in the first place. Which they didn’t. Because you’re using this plugin.
This plugin will do that if you need to keep the discussion contained. While you don’t get granular control of individual posts, it’s up for by giving you total control over whole post types. In many ways, that’s a far more powerful tool.
Conclusion
Sure, there are ways to go into your PHP files and remove the comments areas from your WP directories, but that’s a lot of work. And you can permanently hide the section using CSS.
But that doesn’t disable them, it merely hides them from view, which can be an advantage. If you want to disable WordPress comments, your best bet is one of these routes. Do you keep comments disabled on your site? Let us know why!
