One of the great features of WordPress is the excellent built in commenting system which allows your readers to leave feedback on your posts. To get the most out of it, when you set up WordPress there are a few simple things you need to do.
Step 1
Surf to Dashboard / Settings / Discussion
There you will see this screen. If you want to allow comments at your site, be sure that you have check marks next to:
Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks)
and
Allow people to post comments on new articles
I also suggest that you check:
An administrator must always approve the comment
That way you won’t end up with comments that you don’t want showing up!
Step 2
Depending on your theme, you may have additional settings. If you are using Genesis, this is done under: Dashboard / Genesis / Theme Settings
Scroll down to Comments and Trackbacks. There, you can turn comments on or off for posts and pages and also enable or disable Trackbacks (pingbacks).
Typically, I leave comments off for pages. As I mentioned in “The Difference Between a Page and a Post“:
WordPress allows you to have comment feeds for posts and pages. By default, I usually turn comments off for pages. Why would I want comments on my contact page? On the other hand, I may want to leave comments open on an FAQ page.
If so, then leave comments on for pages. You can disable them on a page by page basis. When you are editing your page, scroll down and find the Discussion settings. Just un-check them and that will turn off comments for that page. The same holds true for posts.
What if it’s already published?
If you have already published some pages and need to turn comments on or off, you can also do that with your Quick Edit feature.
Surf to Dashboard / Pages
Hover over the page you want to turn the comments on or off for.
Check or un-check Allow Comments and then click Update. Again, this holds true for posts.
What if I want to change a number of pages or posts?
 If you want to turn comments on or off for a number of pages or posts, just do this:
Surf to Dashboard / Posts (or pages)
Check off the posts (or pages) you want to turn the comments on or off for.
In the “Bulk Action” drop-down, select Edit
Click Apply
This will bring up the Quick Edit screen you saw above. Check or un-check Allow Comments and then click Update.
By the way, this is also a great way to make other changes to posts and pages. You can add a category, or tag or change the author.
Hope this helps! Remember, any questions, please leave them in a comment below 😉
Leave a Reply