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Turning off comments in WordPress

July 27, 2016 by Peter Wordpress SEO Expert

Turning off comments in Wordpress Wordpress SEO ExpertI get asked this a lot. You’ve made your WordPress site, launched it, then noticed all the empty comment sections and wondered where they came from.

Commenting in WordPress is turned on by default.

To switch it off, got to:
Dashboard > Settings > Discussion

and untick:

  • Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new articles
  • Allow people to post comments on new articles

That sorts out all your future posts and pages. But what about the ones you’ve already published?

For all current posts you have to do each manually. The easiest way is to go to:
Dashboard > Poststhen click “Quick Edit” under them one by one, and unticking these options:

Being sure to “Update” after each one.

It’s a faff, especially if you’ve already published a lot of content. But a learning experience nonetheless.

Comments on this post are (incidentally) open.

🙂

Filed Under: Hints & Tips, Wordpress

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