How to Disable Comments in WordPress the Complete Way

WordPress turns comments on by default, and for a lot of sites that is the wrong default. Maybe you run a business site where comments add nothing but spam, maybe you are tired of moderating, or maybe you only want discussion on blog posts and not on your pages. Whatever the reason, you can disable comments in WordPress completely or selectively — and the catch that trips people up is that turning them off for new content does not touch the posts you have already published. You have to handle both.

This guide covers every level of it: stopping comments on future posts, removing them from everything you have already published, disabling them on specific posts or pages, and clearing away the leftover comment fields and forms so no trace remains. None of it requires touching code, though there is a plugin route if you want the cleanest result in one step.

Turn off comments on all future posts

Start with the global setting that governs everything you publish from now on:

1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings > Discussion.
2. Find the option Allow people to submit comments on new posts.
3. Untick it and save.

From this point, every new post you publish will have comments disabled automatically. This is the single most important step, but on its own it leaves all your existing posts exactly as they were — which is why the next section matters.

Disable comments on posts you have already published

To switch off comments on content that is already live, WordPress has a bulk-edit tool that handles it in one pass:

1. Go to Posts > All Posts.
2. Tick the checkbox at the top of the list to select every post on the page (if you have many posts, first set the screen to show more per page using Screen Options at the top right).
3. From the Bulk actions dropdown, choose Edit and click Apply.
4. In the bulk-edit box that appears, find the Comments dropdown and set it to Do not allow.
5. Click Update.

Repeat for each page of posts if you have more than fit on one screen. Do the same under Pages if you want comments off there too. This closes comments on all the selected content at once, so no one can leave new ones.

Disable comments on a single post or page

If you only want comments off in specific places — say, your contact page and your about page, but not your blog — you can do it individually without changing the global setting:

1. Open the post or page in the editor.
2. In the settings sidebar, open the Discussion panel (in the block editor you may need to enable it first via the three-dot menu > Preferences > Panels, or the Discussion toggle in the document settings).
3. Untick Allow comments.
4. Update the post.

This per-item control is useful when your policy is mixed — discussion welcome in some places, closed in others.

Remove the comment form and existing comments from view

Disabling comments stops new ones, but two things can linger: comments that were already left on a post, and, depending on your theme, a leftover “Comments are closed” line where the form used to be. To deal with both:

• Existing comments still display even after you close commenting. To remove them, go to the Comments screen in the dashboard, select them, and either trash or delete them in bulk. Closing comments hides the form; it does not delete the discussion that is already there.
• The “comments are closed” message is generated by some themes. If yours shows it and you find it untidy, the cleanest fix is the plugin method below, which suppresses these remnants without editing theme files.

For most sites, bulk-trashing old comments plus closing the form is enough. If you want a genuinely spotless result with no comment markup anywhere, read on.

The plugin method: disable everything in one step

If the manual route feels like too many moving parts, a dedicated plugin does all of it at once — disables comments site-wide, removes the comment form, hides existing comments, and strips the comment-related items from your dashboard and admin bar. The well-established option for this is the Disable Comments plugin, which is widely used and actively maintained.

After installing it from Plugins > Add New, its settings let you switch off comments everywhere, or only on specific post types (posts, pages, media). It is the most thorough approach because it also removes the comment columns and menus that otherwise clutter the admin area. For a business or brochure site that will never want comments, this is the cleanest one-step solution. If you are weighing up which plugins are worth adding to a lean site, our complete WordPress how-to guide covers how to keep your plugin footprint sensible.

Disable comments on media attachments

One spot people miss: WordPress can attach comments to media files (images in your library each get their own attachment page, which can accept comments). Spammers sometimes target these even when your posts are locked down. The Disable Comments plugin handles media attachments specifically, which is one of the strongest reasons to use it rather than the manual route alone — the bulk-edit method under Posts and Pages does not reach attachment pages.

If you are dealing with a spam problem rather than wanting comments gone entirely, disabling is not your only option; tightening moderation and filtering can keep comments open but clean, which we cover in our look at dealing with WordPress comment spam.

Turn off pingbacks and trackbacks too

Comments are not the only form of automated interaction WordPress accepts. Pingbacks and trackbacks are notifications other sites send when they link to you, and they show up mixed in with your comments. They are also heavily abused by spammers, so if you are disabling comments, it usually makes sense to switch these off in the same pass:

1. Go to Settings > Discussion.
2. Untick Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new posts.
3. Save.

As with comments, this only affects new posts, so use the same bulk-edit approach under Posts to switch them off on existing content. Turning these off removes a whole category of spam that many site owners do not even realise is reaching them.

Does disabling comments hurt SEO?

This is the question that makes people hesitate, so it is worth answering plainly: disabling comments does not directly harm your search rankings. Comments can contribute to SEO in two indirect ways — they add fresh, keyword-rich text to a page, and an active discussion can signal engagement — but neither is a ranking factor you cannot live without, and both come at the cost of moderation time and spam risk.

For most business sites, informational pages, and low-traffic blogs, the trade is clearly worth it: the marginal SEO value of a handful of comments is outweighed by a cleaner, faster, more secure page. Where comments genuinely add value — a busy blog with real community discussion — keeping them open and well moderated is the better call. The decision is about your content type, not a penalty either way. Google’s own guidance on helpful content focuses on the value of your main content, not on whether a comment section exists; you can read its published guidance for site owners for the wider picture.

Re-enabling comments later if you change your mind

Nothing here is permanent. If you disable comments and later decide you want them back, the process simply reverses: re-tick the option in Settings > Discussion for future posts, and bulk-edit existing posts to allow comments again. If you used the Disable Comments plugin, deactivating it restores the normal comment behaviour your theme and settings define. Because closing comments hides rather than deletes the discussion, any older comments you trashed are gone, but the structure comes straight back. That reversibility is worth remembering — it means you can switch comments off now without worrying that you are closing a door for good.

Why comments are off by default in WordPress core

It helps to understand what you are changing. WordPress began as blogging software, where comments were central, so the platform ships with them enabled. But the modern web treats comment sections differently — many sites have moved the conversation to social platforms, and unmoderated comment forms are a magnet for spam and a small but real security and performance cost. Turning them off on a site that does not need them is a legitimate, common choice, not a workaround. The official WordPress documentation treats comment control as a standard part of site setup.

Comments still showing after you disabled them?

If you have changed the settings but a comment form or old comments are still appearing, one of a few specific things is usually responsible. Run through them in order:

• You only changed the global setting. This is by far the most common cause. Remember the Settings > Discussion change applies to new posts only — the post you are looking at was published before the change and still has comments enabled individually. Bulk-edit your existing posts as described above.
• The post has comments allowed at the individual level. Open that specific post, check the Discussion panel, and untick Allow comments for it directly.
• Your theme hardcodes a comment template. Some themes display comment areas regardless of settings. The Disable Comments plugin overrides this without you editing theme files, which is the simplest fix.
• Caching is serving an old version. If you use a caching plugin or your host caches pages, you may be seeing a stored copy from before your change. Clear your site cache and your browser cache, then check again in a private window.

The caching one catches people out constantly: the change worked, but the visitor-facing page is being served from cache. Always clear the cache and re-check as a logged-out visitor before concluding a setting did not take.

Confirm comments are fully gone

After making your changes, do a quick check: open a published post in a private browser window (so you see it as a visitor) and confirm there is no comment form and no existing comments showing. Check a page and, if you sell or display images, an attachment page too. If anything still shows a form, it is almost always an existing post that was missed in the bulk edit or an attachment page the manual method does not cover — both of which the plugin route resolves.

Once it is clean, future posts inherit the disabled setting automatically and you will not have to think about it again. If you run into other configuration snags while tidying up your site, the WordPress errors reference guide is a good place to start.