Do you know that even if your WordPress Website does not have Comments functionality fields visible on the pages, there is a chance your website may get spammed via comments?
The WordPress comment system is a useful tool. Nevertheless, not every website will require or want this feature. So let’s take a look at two different cases: when we do have Blog Functionality and a Comment section and when we do not have a Comment section on our website.
Every website is unique, so you’ll need to consider the advantages and disadvantages of comments for your specific audience and niche. There are several simple ways to disable comments, either full or partial if you’d decide to.
1. Disable Comments Using WordPress’ Built-In Options when we do have Blog Functionality and a Comment section:
Using the platform’s default settings is the first and simplest way to disable WordPress comments.
Option 1: Turn Off Comments on a Specific Post or Page
Let’s see how to disable comments on a specific post or page.
Open the relevant WordPress page or post to get started. Then, check out the right-hand sidebar. You should see a section labeled Discussion then go ahead and open it up:
Here, you’ll find two options. To disable comments, simply uncheck the Allow Comments box and Allow pingbacks & trackbacks. Then, make sure to save or update the page or article so that readers can no longer submit comments.
Remember that this won’t get rid of any previous comments on the page or article. You will need to manually remove them from your WordPress dashboard Comments area.
Option 2. Turn off Anonymous Comments
As well, you have the option to disable anonymous comments. By default, WordPress native comments ask the visitor for their name, email address, website, and comment.
It is not required if anonymous comments are enabled. This instantly attracts a large number of spam bots who regularly crawl through the comment boxes on websites.
To disable anonymous comments in WordPress simply check the Comment author must fill out the name and email option under Settings > Discussion.
Option 3: Enable Comment Moderation
Your next option to stop spam comments in WordPress is to use built-in moderation features.
The first one is the ability to approve manually each comment. This won’t stop spam, but it can be a good approach to make sure that only the right, authorized comments are displayed to site visitors.
The second one is the comment moderation queue. For example, if a comment has a predetermined number of links or simply contains a link, you can automatically submit it for moderation.
In addition, you can create a list of terms, names, URLs, IP addresses, etc. that are stored for moderation.
Go to the Email me whenever and the Before a comment appears sections and take the following steps:
- to moderate all comments, check the Comments must be manually approved.
- check the Send me an email whenever… checkboxes: A comment is held for the moderation option and Anyone posts a comment to receive email notifications any time a comment is being moderated (it’s important that you can approve or delete it immediately). Anyone can leave a comment, but it is moderated.
Option 4: Only Allow Comments from Logged-In Users
You can think about allowing comments only for site visitors who are logged in if you want to further limit the audience that can leave their thoughts via comments. You can do this if your website has a community with a certain number of members and you want to encourage debate in that community, but not allow other commenters.
Important: this step we are using only if we do have a registration form on the website, if there is no such – we do not check it in.
To do this, go to the Other comment settings section. Check the Users must be registered and logged in to the comment option.
Option 5: Reduce or Ban Links in Comments
Links are what we often found in spam comments as they are often placed with the intent of driving traffic to the spammer’s website. You can ban comments with links entirely or reduce the number of links allowed in a comment.
In the Comment Moderation section, select the number of links a comment needs to have before it’s held for moderation in our case it is 0.
If you prefer not to accept comments containing more than one link, use a higher number.
So if to sum up you will get these kinds of settings:
2. Disable Comments Using WordPress’ Built-In Options When We Don’t Have a Comment Section:
Turn Off Comments Globally:
You can do this by navigating to Settings > Discussion:
Just uncheck the Allow people to submit on new posts.
This means that comments will no longer be available for any new posts posted on your website.
There are two drawbacks to this particular method. Firstly, it does not remove current comments from your website like the option above (you still need to remove them manually).
Secondly, only new comments will be affected; comments on your old posts will not be disabled. Luckily, you can also handle this one with a little technique.
On the same page, find the Automatically close comments on posts older than __ days option, check the box, and enter 0 in the field.
This will make it difficult, but not impossible, for bots to leave automated comments, which make up the majority of comment spam. Also, it can prevent users from trolling your site or posting nasty comments.
In general, if to sum up, you will get these kinds of settings:
