This is an issue that has irked many a website designer over time. WordPress is a very flexible and powerful system but, let’s face it, the software was designed by and for blogger fans. And what blogger fans and other “social networking tragics” love more than anything in the world is interaction.
And who can blame them!
But many of us have clients who don’t want or need people commenting on every page and post of their site. So the wonderful WordPress commenting feature becomes a pain in the bottom instead.
Sure, you can “turn off” commenting but you’re still stuck with a pointless confusing statement at the end of every page and post on your clients site saying “Comments are closed” or something similar.
Getting rid of that statement is possible but, unfortunately, a confusing process because each theme or template used by WordPress has the bit that’s responsible placed in different files.
So, you might read somewhere that you just go to “singlepost.php” and delete a line but discover your theme doesn’t have any such file.
Hopefully, this post will help you sort out what in the heck is going on for at least some templates (themes) you and your clients are using.
Here (in no particular order) are some different methods for removing the “comments are closed” text from a WordPress site. Check your theme for relevant files and then the stated lines within the files. If you can’t find the files and or lines for one solution, try one of the others. Somewhere in here you will hopefully find the right answer for your situation.
Note that these suggestions all assume you’ve already turned off commenting in your site by going into Settings > Discussion in your Admin panel and unchecking the “Allow people to post comments on the article” box.
1. Using the “singlepost.php” and/or “page.php” and/or “”singlepage.php” files
If your theme has one or more of these files included, look for the line
< ? php comments_template(); ? >
Once you’ve found it you have 2 options for stopping it from working.
a) Delete it (not recommended but lots of people do it)
b) Do what’s called “comment it out”. This means you use a bit of simple code to hide it so it won’t work. But if you have any problems it’s easy to remove the “commented out” symbols and restore it back to it’s original state. I just find it a safer method than blithely deleting stuff from the code base.
“Commenting out” looks like this
/*Bit you want to hide*/
Everything between the /* and */ will be ignored as if it’s not there.
2. Using the “comments.php”
In some themes (eg the lovely Amazing Grace) the solution is in the file called “comments.php”. Find the bit that looks something like this:
php else : // comments are closed ?
!– If comments are closed. –>
p class=”nocomments”>Comments are closed</p>
And remove the text that is displaying on your site (the words at the very end in bold). If you’re not sure which bit is the text try putting in a tilda ~ and see if it shows up on the site. If so, you know you have your culprit and can delete the text for display there. Make sure you leave everything else exactly as it is.
If this option is available to you in your theme praise the designer because it means, if you want to, you can still have comments activated on some of your posts. It doesn’t remove anything except one line of ordinary text that usually displays on your site.
3. Using comments.php part 2 (Leptonhead’s solution)
If you can’t find the above line in your comments.php try leptonhead’s suggestion:
1) Go inside the theme folder through FTP and open comments.php
2) Look in comments.php for something that looks like this:
[div class="messagebox"]
[?php _e('Comments are closed.', 'inove'); ?]
[/div]
NB “inove” is the name of the theme, so if you are using another theme look for the name of your theme instead. I know that this bit can also be found in the Options theme and Structure theme but not in the Default or Classic theme.
3) Delete/comment out that entire block.
Thanks leptonhead!!
3. Delete the comments.php entirely
I haven’t ever tried this but I have seen it suggested. It seems a bit drastic to me. I will let you know if it works when I get a chance to experiment with it.
Anyone got other suggestions?
4. CSS
And another suggestion from Shu and Jasonfor those who are comfortable using CSS (thanks both of you!)
A “safer” and simpler solution is to hide the text using css:
.nocomments { display:none; }
Please read comments for more information on above solutions – your question might already be answered!
Awesome! Works like a charm!
Love it!!! Wonderfull
When commenting out, put the / * INSIDE the php tags or use html commenting (which might not work)
The following comment was sent in by a known forum hacker/spammer trying to take advantage of the comment settings in many wordpress blogs and sites. A lot of people have comments set to auto publish from someone who has already been published previously. So spammers go around posting “nice” but completely generic comments (ie – they havent actually read the post, they’re just automatically sending out the same comment all over the net) hoping they will be approved and then they can spam away to their hearts content. I get dozens of them every week, like I’m sure a lot of you do too!
Anyway, this one made me laugh out loud and I just couldn’t bear to delete it, so I thought I’d just remove all links and email etc and let it be on the site for all to laugh at (or giggle or maybe just smile ironically or sommat!). So here is the gem:
Oh and in case you’re wondering – I check all suspect email addresses and/or usernames at this useful website
SFS
Here’s to entertaining morons!!
Oh and I sure wish I really did have some “sake” to share!
Great help for me, i am just a beginner and i needed to get rid of comments from pages
A “safer” and simpler solution is to hide the text using css:
.nocomments { display:none; }
Thanks Shu,
this simple solution worked perfectly
Hi Shu and everyone,
Where do I enter this piece of CSS code?
In my case the comments are closed, had no unique identifier. It was wrapped in a “p” tag, so I could not target it with CSS.
This blog post did point me in the right direction. I opend the comment.php file and and followed the directions above. I did not find any of the above mention. I then looked for the words “comments are closed” and found them between single quotes. I deleted the words and saved. It worked like a charm!
Thank you for at least pointing me in the right direction. By the way, I found this post by searching Google using this term “remove comments are closed link wordpress”
Thanks again!
“Cheers”
JP
Glad we helped in some way
Shu,
Please help – where to put .nocomments { display:none; }
I have tried all alternatives but nothing works.
Great post. Helped me out a lot. I used the 2nd step to get rid of the comments using the comments.php file. Thanks!
Great! Thanks for letting me know what worked!
great! it worked for me, thanks a lot!
Very interesting post and very useful too.Thanks for any insight you have into this.
i just wanna thank you for sharing your this information and your site or blog this is simple but nice article I’ve ever seen i like it i learn something new today
Wow! I am so impressed – usually it is so tough for me to do these things but your instructions were perfect. Can’t thank you enough!
My site looks a lot more professional now.
You’re welcome! Congrats on your website btw – especially the domain name!! I like it a lot.
Thanks! I’m building a new site and have been wondering how to do this. Your explanation was thorough and very clear!
I used Comments.php option 2 and it worked perfectly with Socrates theme!
you are awesome!! I hated that stupid “comments are closed” thing.
Thank you! This worked like a charm for me!!!!!!
Thanks, this issue was getting to me. The second solution worked perfectly.
if i want users to post a comment without being logged in what you i have to amend in the code please ?
You don’t need to amend the code for this. Just go into settings/discussion and tick the box for “anyone can comment” and untick/tick other boxes as preferred.
Cheers
Thanks for the excellent tutorial. The “comments are closed” statement has been an eyesore to me for some time.
Great advice, has been bugging the hell out of me
I will be trying it out soon.
Thanks.
thanks a lot… I’ve found the solution .. when I was almost desperate but I find this.. great! gbu
btw I use inove too…
Hello,
Do you happen to have these settings for getting rid of comments are closed but for WordPress.com? I am sorry if the above is for that (And I am being really stupid), but I can’t seen to find an option in my wordpress.com dashboard to access the php files.
I hope that you can help me.
Thanks,
Rebecca.
P.s I really like your style of writing and explaining, very nice.
Hi Rebecca I don’t think you can do that if you are using the wordpress.com site as they don’t give you access to the WordPress files. You need to be able to access the hosts control panel. Maybe you could contact them and ask if they’ll do it for you. Or you could look at hosting your own WordPress installation.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or if I can help you with anything. Cheers! (thanks for the nice compliment)
Hi, for me only the No 3 work, “Delete the comments.php entirely” and it seem to be ok, all the box and Leave the reply is remove now. i dont know why the other dont work for me? i use socrate theme and i hope this is not causing any problem soon?
anyway just to say a big thank for this good blog!!!
It really depends how the template your using is coded so one thing wont work for all. I’m just glad most people seem to be finding a solution in here and thanks to others for contributing their ideas and experiences. If you do find a problem happens post back here and we might be able to solve it.
Cheers!
Wow, this was very fun to read. Have you ever considered submitting articles to magazines?
Thanks for the excellent writing. It is nice to finally read someone that can entertain with words.
thanks, the best and easy way I foud. that helped me a lot.
But… I have no .php edit file. What I have to do?
which .php file don’t you have?
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
I am using the default twenty ten theme. I have ‘unchecked’ the box on the page to not allow comments and the comment box still shows. I don’t want delete the comments all together so option 3 is out. I couldn’t find the code for option 1. Option 2 didn’t work.
It appears that the code for the comments is in the funcstions.php.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks…
I uploaded the twenty ten theme for another project and was able to hide the comments with the check box – the way it should work!
This tells me that either a plugin,, or some modification or setting is causing the problem… any suggestions on what to check?
Check your file permissions (on the server). It sounds like it wasn’t allowing you to make changes to your settings.
How do I get admin status in WordPress.
I thought that I signed up as an admin, I need to change this so that I can have editing privileges.
Thanks Sheila for this article. My site looks a bit more clean now. On one page I’ve created a contact form page and beneath the page it said: “We’re sorry. Comments are closed”. Kind of ironic
.
I deleted out the whole code in comments.php for Green Park 2 template. It works!
Oh my gosh, this totally worked! I have spent almost 2 hours now trying to figure it out myself to no avail. Thank you so much!
Phew! No solution worked for me, but finally I found the text ‘comments are closed’ in the comments.php. I just removed the text. Now the text is gone and I only have a small box under the posts, but I don’t mind. It’s empty! That works for me.
I am creating a new site and still learning the ropes.
I really don’t want comments for the site I am making. Thanks for the information.
Kyle Crow
Marketing Manager
pokolbin restaurants
You’re welcome! Good luck with your new site.
Point number 3 worked for me, but not the commenting out part but removing the entire block
Luckily I am using exactly the inove theme so it was pretty easy to follow your instructions with logging in trough FTP and going to comments.php, etc etc
Thanks for the detailed instructions
This really helped.
Hey guys!!
I had some hell of a time finding this thing. The windows find function doesn’t work inside the .php file apparently, that is why I just couldn’t find the string. I tried using /* */ to invalidate all comment.php and it still didn’t work. Finally I found this in index.php :
Posted in at . <!– by –> .
I wanted all information to disappear from the end of the post, and that’s exactly what happened. I’m using the hello:D template.
Well, if Sheila please can make it show the code, than that’s the part I deleted to have comments and author and everything else disappear at the end of the post, just how I wanted.
My page.php had this code and as you can see below i commented out the comments_template(); and it worked. This was from an Artisteer template.
Thank You
Jacob
Good to know it works on an Artisteer template too.
Hi
Thanks from me too. Very clear and simple instructions – what a joy!
Option 2 (comments.php) worked for me although I commented out the words in single post php as well.
I think having a message at the bottom of each page could be a very useful feature so rather than delete “Comments are closed” I replaced it with a message: “Be kind to your web footed friends
” until I work out a more suitable expression.
Thanks again
LOL That’s as good a message as any!! But great idea.
I tried to delete the comment.php entirely and it had no effect. It still said “Leave a reply” and “you must be logged in to…” .
That was with ‘graphene’ theme
I don’t believe it…
LOL Frustrating isn’t it. That would mean the comments bit is being handled by a different file. Have you tried any of the other suggestions? Personally I’d re-upload the comments.php and try something else.
Hello!! in my comments.php i have found just this, What I have to do to delete “Comments are closed”?
Thank you very much
Hello!! in my comments.php i have found just this, What I have to do to delete “Comments are closed”?
if (function_exists(‘wp_list_comments’)) {
comments_template(”, true);
} else {
comments_template();
Thank you very much
This article is useful and well-written, but it doesn’t solve my comment problem. I’ve been using the plugin “One Click Close Comments” for just about every site I set up with WordPress. Most of the time I only want comments off of the pages, not the posts, and when I disable comments it leaves no trace of them on the page at all. No “no comments,” no “comments are closed.” It’s like they never were meant to be there and I had to do zero code work.
Well, my luck ran out today. I installed a theme (The Bluebird Sings) on a friend’s site (tiffhnebz.com) and I realized that the pages have “no comments yet, add one” and “comments are closed.” I used option 2 to remove “comments are closed” (which worked), but how do I remove everything else from just the pages, and not the posts?
I appreciate the time anyone takes in answering this, and OP, thanks for the great article, it’s a great place to start! I’m bookmarking it for future reference.
I should also mention that under the page title I have “Comments Off” showing up, yet the word “off” is only on one of my .php files, and it’s nowhere near the word “Comments.”
SOrry I only just saw your comment. I’m not really sure what you need help with. Are you still using the plugin? Have you looked for “comments are closed” rather than “comments off” as it’s those words we’re trying to remove from the site. Is that helpful? Sorry I really am a bit confuzzled about what you’re asking.
thank you for the book
I know that WordPress is a very flexible and powerful system but it is awesome news that removing comments are closed WordPress. I used the 2nd step to get rid of the comments using the comments.php file. Thanks! to Admin for this great post!
I created my theme from scratch, and I have had no reference to/need for comments, or the date stamp. Yet I am being plagued by this problem. I managed to removed “comment are closed” via the css, YET the date stamp remains in my pages, despite the fact that I have no reference to the_date in any of my templates :/
Look in your template files for the following code (often in single.php):
and replace it with:
comment_status) : ?>
That will make it hide the entire comments section, not just the “Comments are closed.” text, and will only apply on posts/pages for which comments are disabled.
My last comment didn’t post properly because it contained code, so here’s the pastebin version: http://pastebin.com/X5nHeCxf
Thanks so much for that Matthew