How to Disable WordPress Comments: A Detailed and Simple Guide You May Not Know About

WordPress comments are an important feature that allows administrators to interact and gather user opinions directly on the website. However, there are cases where comments are unnecessary or can negatively affect the website due to inappropriate comments. In this article, FPT Shop will guide you on how to disable comments in WordPress along with important notes.

Cases where you should disable WordPress comments

Although disabling comments in WordPress may have some limitations for your website, in some cases, owners still need to perform this operation. There are different reasons why the comment feature becomes unnecessary or needs to be disabled, such as:

• For e-commerce websites that are primarily product introductions, contact, and showcasing, comments do not add value and should be disabled.
• Announcement posts and unwanted user participation should also have the comments feature disabled.
• If your WordPress site is regularly bombarded with unwanted spam comments, disabling the comment feature is the most effective measure to combat spam for your website.

The positive and negative aspects of disabling WordPress comments

Any feature has both positive and negative aspects when applied to your website. Here are some points to consider when deciding to disable WordPress comments.

Positive aspects

• Reduced website management time: Administrators do not need to spend a lot of time monitoring comments on pages and posts, giving them more time for other tasks.
• Preventing comment spam: Disabling WordPress comments serves to prevent advertising and spam on posts, helping maintain the professionalism of the website.
• Improving page loading speed: By removing comments from posts and websites, page loading speed can be significantly improved. You can use leading page speed check tools to evaluate and optimize your website.
• Avoiding content distractions: Prolonged discussions in the comments section can detract from the appeal of the post’s content and cause distractions, especially unrelated comments. Therefore, disabling WordPress comments can keep the content more concise and engaging.

Negative aspects

In addition to the benefits mentioned above, disabling WordPress comments also presents certain limitations such as:

• Reduced user interaction: The comment section is an opportunity to interact and listen to reader opinions. When this feature is disabled, the ability to interact and spread posts will be limited.
• Impact on SEO: Although not a major factor, comments can contribute to improving the ranking of a website if they contain relevant content.
• Lack of feedback to improve post quality: Disabling the comment feature means losing a channel to collect user feedback to improve content relevance.

Methods to disable WordPress comments

Here are the methods to directly disable WordPress comments in the interface provided by WordPress. Let’s explore with FPT Shop:

Method 1: Disable comments on all WordPress posts

Step 1: First, access your Admin account to enter WordPress. Then select Settings -> select Discussion.

Step 2: In the Discussion section, deselect the checkbox next to Allow people to submit comments on new posts. Then click Save changes to complete disabling comments in WordPress.

Method 2: Disable WordPress comments on all old posts

Step 1: Go to the WordPress admin interface, find the Posts section and select All Posts. 

Step 2: Select all the posts you want to disable WordPress comments on, then choose Edit > Apply.

Step 3: To disable WordPress comments on old posts, in the Comments box > select Do not allow > finally select Update to complete.

Method 3: Disable WordPress comments on specific individual posts

Step 1: As usual, use the Admin account to disable WordPress comments. Then select Posts -> select All Posts. Mouse over the Post title you want to disable comments on > select Quick Edit.

Step 2: In the Quick Edit section, uncheck Allow Comments to disable WordPress comments. Then click Update to save.

Disable WordPress comments using plugins

In addition to the methods to disable comments directly in the WordPress interface, we can also disable comments using third-party plugins that provide convenient and fast options with many extended features. Below are some popular plugins:

Method 1: Use the “Disable Comments” plugin

Step 1: Firstly, go to the Plugins section in the WordPress dashboard and download the Disable Comment plugin. After completing the download, start installing and activating the plugin.

Step 2: Access the Settings section and select Disable Comments.

In the Disable Comments section, you will see two options to choose from. The first option is “Everywhere” (disabling comments across the entire website and removing comments from the WordPress admin interface), and the second option is “On certain post types” (disabling comments for posts, pages, or specific media types).

Choose one of the two options and click Save Changes to complete disabling WordPress comments.

Method 2: Use the “Disable Comments For Any Post Types” plugin

Step 1: Similarly to the Disable Comments plugin, you also need to download and install the Disable Comments For Any Post Types plugin in the Plugins section.

Step 2: In the Settings interface, choose the options you want:

• Disable comments on new: Disable WordPress comments on posts, pages, media.
• Modify all current: Edit existing comments according to the administrator’s preference on posts, pages, media.

Method 3: Use the “No Page Comment” plugin

Step 1: In the WordPress interface, download and install the “No Page Comment” plugin to disable WordPress comments.

Step 2: In the interface of the “No Page Comment” plugin, select the options you want to use:

• Disable comments on new: Disable WordPress comments on posts, pages, media.
• Modify all curent: Edit existing comments according to the administrator’s preference on posts, pages, media.

Step 3: After making your selection, click Update Settings to complete the setup.

Deleting comments on the entire WordPress website

After disabling WordPress comments, the existing comments will still be displayed on your page. Therefore, if you want to permanently delete comments, refer to the following steps:

Step 1: After logging in to the WordPress Dashboard, select the Comments section.

Step 2: Select all the comments you want to delete, then choose Move to trash > click Apply. All selected comments will be moved to the trash. At this point, the comments will no longer be displayed on your page but still be temporarily stored in the trash.

Step 3: To permanently delete the selected comments, go to the Trash section, then select the comments > choose Delete Permanently > click Apply to complete the deletion.