Wondering how to remove ‘leave a reply’ on WordPress? If yes, then you’re on the right page.
Comments and replies are a wonderful way to communicate with your visitors. They also add SEO value to your website. So, WordPress contains a default comment system on your posts.
However, this sometimes can be a problem as spammers can misuse it to harm your website. In addition, comments are not required for user interaction is some websites.
Hence, it’s up to you, whether to get rid of the ‘Leave a Reply’ section. If you want to remove it on WordPress, then several options let you control, enable, or disable comments on your site.
In this article, we’ve enlisted 5 easy ways to remove ‘Leave a Reply’ on WordPress completely or in some posts. Plus, you’ll learn to delete added comments and tips for a better comment section. So, let’s dive into it!
Video Tutorial – Remove Leave a Reply on WordPress
Short of time? Here’s a quick video tutorial on how to remove ‘Leave a Reply’ on WordPress.
Still ready to go through the blog? Then, continue reading!
Why Would You Want to Get Rid of ‘Leave a Reply’ on WordPress?
Getting rid of the comment section from the website is uncommon, but different websites don’t want comments or replies.
Here are some of the reasons for disabling the comment section:
- Spam Comments: It’s one of the most common reasons for disabling the comment section. Although there are many comment anti-spam plugins, some prefer closing the comments entirely. Rightly so, it can completely prevent comment spam.
- Unwanted Interaction: Some types of websites don’t want user interaction at all. For example, brochure websites intend only to provide information and notices. So, they may not want any conversation with users.
- No Blog Sections: Recently opened small businesses don’t have blog sections or contentful posts. They just have information about their service/product. They may also want to turn off comments.
- Slow Site Speed: If your blog receives tons of comments, then it can also impact your site speed. If you’re not able to regularly monitor and moderate the comments, then they can outgrow your page content and slow down the page speed.
These are some instances why you may want to close ‘leave a reply’ on WordPress. Whatever the reason may be, we’ve got you covered with easy ways!
But before that, let’s see what you’ll miss after removing the comments.
What You’ll Miss After Disabling the Comment Section?
Before you turn off comments, it’s better to consider what you’ll miss after the act. This is to help you make an informed decision.
- You might lose potential customers. Commenting is one of the easiest ways for customers to find out more information about products or services they want to buy. So, when comments are turned off, you might lose some prospects.
- You’ll miss suggestions. Some users may want to provide suggestions but they won’t be able to do so. With such suggestions turned off, you’ll miss opportunities to improve your site.
- Positive comments are social proof. If most of the comments on your site are positive, then they can influence other visitors. And, they may become your regular customer. You’ll lose that opportunity also.
Overall, you’ll lose an important channel for receiving your users’ feedback, suggestions, and interaction. So, consider these points and make your decision!
If you decide to close comments, then you can use the following methods.
5 Easy Ways to Remove ‘Leave a Reply’ in WordPress
There are various ways to remove ‘leave a reply’ on WordPress. Therefore, we’ve included some of the easy methods for your website.
So let’s get started!
Method 1. Remove ‘Leave a Reply’ from All Future Posts
With this method, you’ll be able to get rid of the comment section entirely on your future WordPress posts. This includes all the pages and posts of the website.
For this, log in to your WordPress dashboard and click on the ‘Settings ‘menu. Then, go to the ‘Discussion‘.
After that, you can see the ‘Default post settings‘ section where you can ‘uncheck’ the “Allow people to submit comments on new posts” element.
Also, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes‘ button at the bottom-left of the settings page.
This method will simply turn off all future comments on your article, posts, and pages. Not for specific posts or pages. We’ll share that in the next method below.
Method 2. Disable the Comment Section on a Particular Post
Now, we’ll share how to get rid of the comment section for specific posts or pages. This option will help you close future comments on specific posts.
Here, we provide you with 2 different ways, please go with the one that makes you feel easier.
Quick Edit Method
Firstly, go to the ‘Posts ‘menu of your dashboard and click on ‘All Posts‘. There, you can see your posts. Once you hover on any of your posts, you can see the “Quick Edit” option.
Just click on it and you can see “Allow Comments” in the Tags section. You simply need to uncheck the ‘Allow Comments‘ and click on the ‘Update‘ button.
That’s it! Now you’re all set.
If you’ve comments on your pages also, then you can follow the same steps and turn of future comments.
Edit Post Mode
Moving forward, similar to the previous method, you can close future comments on some particular blog articles using this method.
To begin, go to the ‘Posts>All Posts‘ from your WordPress dashboard. Hover on any post for which you want to turn off the comment section. There, you can see the ‘Edit’ option.
Now, click the ‘Settings‘ option on the top-right of the post editor. There, open the ‘Post‘ tab.
There, you can see the ‘Discussion’ menu, which is currently ‘Comments only‘ enabled.
Now, click the ‘Comments only’ option and uncheck the ‘Open‘ option. Instead, check the ‘Closed‘ option. Once you do that, click the ‘Save’ button on the top right.
Now, the comments section of this post will be turned off. Also, any visitors won’t be able to comment or reply to your post.
Suppose you want to remove the ‘Leave a Comment’ option from several pre-existing articles. In that case, the process is different and explored next!
Method 3. Remove ‘Leave a Reply’ from Already Published Articles
If you want to remove the ‘leave a reply’ section from multiple published posts/pages in bulk, then this approach is most suitable.
To do so, go to the ‘Posts‘ or ‘Pages‘ menu and click on ‘All Posts‘ or ‘All Pages‘. There, click the ‘Published‘ link to open published articles only.
Now, check the box on the left side of the ‘Title‘ to select the posts or pages you want to update.
Then, select the ‘Bulk actions‘ dropdown and select the ‘Edit’ option. After that, click on the ‘Apply‘ button to start editing.
There, you can see lots of elements, among them; go to the ‘Comments’ and click on its dropdown option.
You just need to select the “Do not allow” option for your comments and lastly, click on the ‘Update‘ button.
Now, the comment section won’t appear for all the posts and pages that you’ve selected. Continue the same process for more posts if you want to disable the comment system.
Method 4. Delete Already Approved Comments from WordPress
The above-mentioned methods only disable future comments on your website. But you cannot remove already added comments.
To get rid of previously published comments, you need to delete them. We’ll show how to do that easily in this method.
Remove All Comments on Your WordPress Site
First of all, go to the ‘Comments‘ page from your dashboard. There, you’ll see all comments on your website, both approved and pending.
First, go to ‘Approved‘ and checkmark on the left side of the ‘Author’ to select all the comments.
After selecting all the comments, click on the ‘Bulk actions‘ dropdown. On that dropdown, you can see an option “Move to Trash”. Click on it, then go to the ‘Apply’ button.
Hence, the 20 most recent approved comments get deleted. Continue the process if there are more comments to delete. That’s how you can get rid of all of the comments.
Delete Comments from a Specific Post
Suppose you want to delete the comments from a specific post only. Then, there’s a separate process!
Go to the WordPress dashboard, go to ‘Comments‘, and see the ‘In Response To‘ column. Pick the post you want to delete comments from by clicking the comment icon with the comments count.
For example, the screenshot above shows both approved pending comments. You can delete them one by one. Here, we’ll go for a post and show the process for the approved comments.
Once you choose a post, you’ll get a list of comments made on that specific post. Now, click the checkbox next to the ‘Author‘ option to select all comments of that post.
After that, select the ‘Move to Trash‘ option from the ‘Bulk actions‘ dropdown. And then, click on the ‘Apply‘ button.
That’s it. You’ll see all the approved comments removed. But if there are more than 20 comments, then you may need to repeat the same process to delete comments on the next page.
Method 5. Remove Comments Using a Plugin
You can also install and use WordPress plugins to disable the comments if you don’t want to use the default methods offered by WordPress. Such plugins can quickly get rid of the comments.
In this article, we’ve selected the Disable Comments plugin that instantly allows or disallows comments from any post, page, or media. This also stops spammers and gives you complete control over the comments on your site.
All you’ve to do is go to the ‘Plugins>Add New Plugin‘ and search the “Disable Comments” on the search bar.
Once you find the plugin, click on the ‘Install‘ button.
After installing the plugin, you can see an ‘Activate‘ button. Click on the ‘Activate‘ button to start using the plugin.
Now, on the left side of the menu, go to ‘Settings’ and click ‘Disable Comments‘ on your dashboard. This opens the settings on two tabs, i.e. ‘Disable Comments‘ and ‘Delete Comments‘.
The steps for both options are similar. Here, let’s go through ‘Disable Comments’.
Here, you can have a checkmark on the ‘Everywhere‘ option. This helps to disable comments on your entire website globally. Notably, this closes comments on all existing and future posts, pages, media, and products and hides previous comments.
Or, you can checkmark on Posts, Pages, and Media from the “On Specific Post Types” section. It helps to disable comments-related fields for specific posts/pages while the other posts/pages will have a visible comment section.
For example, select ‘Posts‘ and then click ‘Save Changes‘.
Similarly, go to the ‘Delete Comments‘ tab to delete the comments. Deleting comments from everywhere or certain posts types is possible just like the disable comments tab.
Remember, comment deletion is permanent. So, you can’t restore them once deleted unless kept a backup.
Smart Ways to Manage Comments in WordPress
We’ve already covered how to remove the ‘leave a reply’ section using the above methods.
However, you don’t have to remove the comment system if you can manage it properly. With that, you can benefit from the merits of the WordPress comment system.
So, here are some of the easiest methods, so stick with us till the end.
i) Comment Moderation
We know WordPress has various built-in comment moderation features for its users. You can simply use its feature to avoid spam comments. So, let’s dive into the steps!
First, go to the ‘Settings’ menu and click on ‘Discussion‘ of your WordPress dashboard. Scroll down and find the ‘Before a comment appears‘ section.
There, enable the ‘Comment must be manually approved‘ option. This stops the automatic approval of comments so that no comments appear on your website without moderation.
In addition, you can also enable ‘Comment author must have a previously approved comment‘. Doing this can automatically approve comments from trusted users without reviewing them.
Scroll down further and you can see the ‘Comment Moderation‘ section. First, enter a number on the small textbox that includes ‘Hold a comment in the queue if it contains [number] or more links‘.
Spam comments generally contain several hyperlinks. So, this number helps in identifying spam comments instantly. If you don’t want any links, then simply enter 1.
In the box, enter the keywords that are frequently used in spam comments. So, whenever those words appear in your comments, they will be kept in moderation. Putting comments into moderation means they won’t appear without your approval.
Similarly, you can also see another section as “Disallowed Comment Keys”. This will send any comment containing the disallowed keywords into the trash. You just need to enter the words you don’t want to see on your website.
ii) Anti-Spam Protection WordPress Plugin
Aside from using WordPress’s features, you can also use a WordPress plugin for more effectiveness. Here, we’re using the Akismet Spam Protection plugin to show you a step-by-step process on how to avoid spam comments.
Akismet Spam Protection is one of the most popular anti-spam plugins. It checks your comments to prevent your site from publishing malicious content. You can review and delete the spam comments it catches on your website.
However, if you want to use the completely free anti-spam plugin, then Antispam Bee is a good alternative. It also helps to eliminate spam comments and trackbacks effectively without the usage of captchas.
Also, check our article on the best anti-spam comment plugins for more options.
Now, let’s move forward into the steps, instead of discussing more about the plugin.
Before installing this plugin, you need to create an account. Go to its official website and click on the Pricing. We’ll be using a ‘Personal Plan‘ for this tutorial.
After clicking on the Personal Plan, you can see a price slider, you can drag and slide it to $0. Next, press ‘Continue with Personal Subscription‘.
Then, enter your email address and the URL of your website. Next, you’ll receive an API in your email that you’ve entered while creating an account. This API will be used after activating the plugin.
Now, go to the WordPress dashboard and click on the ‘Plugins’ menu. You can find the ‘Add New Plugin’ option, click on it, and enter the Akismet Spam Protection on the search bar. After finding the plugin, click on the ‘Install Now‘ button.
Once the installation is completed, click on the ‘Activate’ button to check if the plugin works or not.
After activating the plugin, you need to manually enter an API that you’ve received in your email. Then, click on the ‘Connect’ button to integrate your account with the Akismet Spam Protection plugin.
Now that you’ve connected, the plugin will automatically start protecting your site from spam comments. You can also configure its settings according to your needs and security, and click on the ‘Save Changes‘ button.
Hence, it’s also one of the easiest and most reliable methods to protect your website from spammers and spambots.
iv) Closing Comments After a Certain Period
Besides deleting and disabling comments on your website, you can simply close the comments after a certain period as well.
To do so, go to the ‘Settings‘ menu in the dashboard of your WordPress website. Click on the ‘Discussion’ and there you’ll find ‘Other comment settings‘.
In that section, you can see the element “Automatically close comments on posts older than 14 days”. Checkmark on that option and just select the number of days according to your preference.
After that, the comment section will be automatically closed after the certain days that you’ve selected.
Since the spammers or spambots usually target older articles, using this method will somewhat reduce spam comments. Because the comment will be closed after certain days and no one will be able to comment.
Here’s our complete beginner’s guide on how to make a website.
Conclusion
That’s all folks! We’ve arrived at the end of this article. We’ve discussed 5 different methods to remove ‘leave a reply’ on WordPress.
We hope this article helped you know how to disable the comment section of your WordPress website. Now, you can eliminate unwanted comments on WordPress using any of these easy methods.
Also, if you’ve tried any of the methods above-mentioned, leave us a comment below.
If you have any more queries about getting rid of comments, feel free to ask us. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Also, share this article with your friends and colleagues.
You may also like our article about how to add a contact form & page on WordPress & how to check if a website is built on WordPress.
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