WordPress comments: switch them on or off, moderate them and keep them tidy

The short answer: comments give a blog life, but on a company site they tend to cost more work (and spam) than they are worth. The rules are under Settings > Discussion. For most company sites the best is to switch them off on pages and on only for posts, with manual approval.

The settings that count

Setting What it does Suggestion
Allow comments on new posts Switches on or off for those you write from now on. Off on a site with no blog; on only if you will reply.
Comment must be manually approved Nothing appears without you approving it. On. The simplest defence.
Author with a previously approved comment Someone already approved goes through without waiting. On, for regular readers.
Close comments after N days Old posts stop receiving comments (and spam). On, with a long period.
Moderation by words and links Holds comments with certain words or many links. Hold those with 2 or more links.
Avatars (Gravatar) Shows the author’s picture, linked to an outside service. Off if you do not need it: saves requests and data.

Step by step

1 Open Settings > Discussion and adjust the table’s options.
2 To switch off on a single page, open it, look for “Discussion” in the page settings and untick “Allow comments”. Or, under Pages, use “Quick Edit”.
3 Moderate: Comments > those that are “pending”. Approve, reply, or mark as spam.
4 Against spam: Stopping spam comments in WordPress (Akismet comes with WordPress, with its own rules for commercial use).
5 Bulk delete: piled-up spam can be deleted at once from the spam bin.
Comments store personal data (name, e-mail, IP address). Say so in the privacy policy and answer deletion requests: Personal data protection. Rules vary by country.
If you do not reply to comments, switch them off: an ignored comment drives away more than it helps.

Want help cleaning up a site’s comments? Open a ticket with the address.

Open a support ticket

SEE ALSO

Stopping spam comments in WordPress

Personal data protection: what applies to your website

Writing a blog post in WordPress

Protecting the WordPress login: three steps in order of effect

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