Certified WordPress Developer and SEO Specialist with 10+ years of experience on Fiverr. I provide expert solutions for WordPress error fixing, debugging, speed optimization, and security hardening. Services include hacked site recovery, malware removal, on-page SEO optimization, and full customization to ensure your website runs fast, secure, and ranks higher on Google.
Are you seeing the ‘Comments are closed’ message on your WordPress posts?
This message is displayed when comments have been disabled on a post. However, some users report seeing the message unexpectedly.
In this article, we’ll show you how to fix ‘Comments are closed’ in WordPress.
What Is the ‘Comments Are Closed’ in WordPress Error?
The comment area of your WordPress blog allows your website visitors to give feedback, ask questions, offer their own point of view on the topic, and respond to other comments.
Comments are disabled on all WordPress pages by default, and you won’t see the ‘Comments are Closed’ message on pages. However, you can still follow the steps below to open comments on your pages as well as posts.
For blog posts, you can disable comments on specific posts or on your entire WordPress website. For example, you may wish to disable comments on an announcement post.
When you disable comments on a post that has at least one comment, you will see the message ‘Comments are closed.’ This explains to your visitors that even though there are comments on the post, no further comments can be left.
If you disable comments on a post that has no comments, then you won’t see the ‘Comments are closed’ message. WordPress will simply not display the comment form.
Perhaps you’re seeing the ‘Comments are closed’ message on your website unexpectedly. While WordPress is easy to use, some error messages can be hard to troubleshoot for beginners. That’s why we put together a list of the 50 most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.
This message is most likely being shown because of a WordPress setting that’s not configured correctly. That’s because WordPress has comments settings in multiple areas, which can make it hard for beginners to find the right settings to fix the problem.
In this post, we’ll walk you through all the settings you should check in order to reopen the comments on your blog posts.
With that being said, let’s look at how to fix ‘Comments are closed’ in WordPress.
Comments are often closed on a WordPress site because at some time in the past a setting was checked was that disables comments on new posts by default.
You can check this setting by navigating to Settings » Discussion. Here you’ll find a set of checkboxes that control how comments are handled on new posts.
The first setting to look at is ‘Allow people to post comments on new articles’. This box should be checked so that the default setting for future posts is to allow comments.
Next, look at ‘Automatically close comments on articles older than XX days’. This setting is useful if you don’t want users to be able to comment on older posts. However, if you want to allow comments on all posts, then you should make sure this box is unchecked.
Once you’re happy with the discussion settings, make sure you click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the screen to store the settings.
This will make sure comments are open on all new posts you create. But it will not enable them on posts that have already been created.
That’s what we’ll do in the next step.
Enable Comments on a Specific Post
This method will show you how to enable comments on existing posts one at a time. However, if you wish to enable comments on many posts, then you should follow the ‘Enable Comments in Bulk’ method that we cover below.
If you use the block editor on your WordPress site, then you need to scroll down the settings pane on the right of the screen until you come to the Discussion panel.
Now you should click on ‘Discussion’ to expand the options, and then make sure the ‘Allow comments’ box is checked.
Once you click the Update button at the top of the screen to save the setting, comments will be enabled for this post.
You should repeat these steps to enable comments on other blog posts. You can also follow the same process to enable comments on WordPress pages.
How to Display the Discussions Panel if It Is Hidden
While the Discussions panel is displayed by default, it may be hidden on your website. If you can’t find it, then you will need to click the Options icon at the top right of the screen. This icon looks like 3 vertical dots.
You then need to click on ‘Preferences’ and navigate to the ‘Panels’ tab. Once there, you can toggle the ‘Discussions’ switch on so that the panel is displayed.
Enable Comments on a Specific Post (Classic Editor)
If you are using the classic editor, then the steps for enabling comments on a post are a little different. Here, the Discussion meta box is hidden by default. To display it, you will need to click on ‘Screen Options‘ at the top right of the screen.
Next, you should check the Discussion box under ‘Screen elements’. After that, simply click ‘Screen Options’ again to return to your post.
You can now scroll down to the bottom of your post where you will find the Discussion meta box. You should make sure the ‘Allow comments’ box is checked.
After you click the Update button to save the setting, comments will be enabled for this post.
Enable Comments on Posts in Bulk
If you need to enable comments on multiple posts, then you can update them in bulk. To do that, navigate to the Posts » All Posts page where you will find a list of all of your posts.
You need to select the posts that have comments disabled by clicking the checkbox next to each post.
After that, you should choose ‘Edit’ from the Bulk Actions dropdown box and then click the ‘Apply’ button. This will open the bulk edit screen.
Here you need to click the ‘Comments’ drop down menu and then select ‘Allow’.
Don’t forget to click the ‘Update’ button to change the setting for all selected posts.
How to Select All Posts At Once
If you want to enable comments for every post on your website at once, then following the steps above would take a lot of time if you have hundreds of blog posts on your site.
To do it faster, there are a few extra steps you should take. First, you will need to make sure that all posts are displayed on a single page.
You can see a count of all the posts on your website under the ‘Posts’ title at the top of the screen. If you have 20 posts or less, then they are already displayed on one page. If you have more than 20 posts, then you will have to increase the number of items per page.
To do that, you should click ‘Screen Options’ at the top of the page. Then, under Pagination, find the ‘Number of items per page’ setting. Here you will need to type a number larger than the total number of posts on your site.
For example, if you have 65 posts on your website, then you could type the number 70.
After that, you need to click the ‘Apply’ button and all of your posts will be displayed on one page. You can now click ‘Screen Options again to hide the settings.
You can now select every post on your site by simply clicking the checkbox next to ‘Title’.
To enable comments on all of these posts, you should click ‘Bulk Actions’ then ‘Edit’, and follow the steps we covered earlier in this section to change the Comments setting to ‘Allow’.
Note: We don’t recommend trying to update hundreds of blog posts at once if you have slow web hosting, since your site may time out or freeze up before completing all the updates.
Check for Incompatible Themes or Plugins
If you have tried all of the steps above and comments are still disabled on your site, then it may be because of an incompatibility with your theme or one of your plugins.
Sometimes poorly coded WordPress themes may wrongly display the ‘Comments are closed’ message even when comments are open.
To check if your theme is the problem, you should navigate to Appearance » Themes and temporarily activate some other theme.
If the ‘Comments are closed’ message is now fixed, then your theme is the problem. You can ask the theme developer to fix the issue. For more details, see our guide on how to properly ask for WordPress support and get it.
Alternatively, if you’re an advanced user, then you can try to fix the issue yourself. You need to refer to our guide on how to disable comments in WordPress, and then follow the instructions under ‘Remove “Comments Are Closed” in WordPress’.
If you think a plugin may be causing the issue, then you can head over to Plugins » Installed Plugins and make sure you haven’t installed a plugin designed to disable comments, such as Disable Comments. If you have, then simply disable that plugin and test to see if comments are now working.
If comments are still closed, then you need to test for incompatible plugins. You’ll need to temporarily deactivate one plugin at a time by clicking its ‘Deactivate’ link.
Now test to see if comments are enabled on your site. If they are still not working, then this plugin is not the problem. Simply click its ‘Enable’ link and move on to the next plugin.
Do you want to display your form in a single line?
Single line forms give you more flexibility with form placement. This means you can easily add forms to high traffic areas of your site and improve your conversions.
In this article, we’ll show you how to display your form in a single line in WordPress easily.
Why Display a Single Line Form in WordPress?
Single line forms give you more flexibility when choosing where to place your forms. Since this style of form is only a single line, they don’t take up much space and can easily be integrated with your existing content.
Email newsletter sign up forms are often displayed in a single line above or below blog post content. Single-line forms also work well on landing pages, contact pages, and other important pages on your website.
Beyond generating more subscribers and leads, you can turn any kind of form into a single line form. For example, it might make sense to display your contact form in a single line to save space on the page.
That being said, let’s show you how to display a single line form on your WordPress website.
Creating Your Single Line Form in WordPress
For this tutorial, we’ll be using the WPForms plugin to create a single line form. It’s the best lead generation plugin for WordPress used by over 5 million websites.
You can use the drag and drop builder to quickly create any form for your site. Plus, it integrates with popular email marketing tools so you can easily grow your email list.
There is a premium version of the plugin with many more features, but we’ll use the lite version for this tutorial since it lets you create a simple form and connect it to Constant Contact for lead generation.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
After that, go to WPForms » Add New in your WordPress admin panel and give your form a name. Then, you need to choose your form template.
We’ll select the ‘Opt-In Form’ template. Simply hover over the template and click the ‘Use Template’ button.
This brings up the drag and drop form builder.
You’ll see that the template we chose automatically includes the name and email fields and a submit button.
Every field can be edited by clicking on them and making changes in the left hand column.
You can also drag and drop the fields to change their order.
Once you’re done customizing the fields, you can display your form in a single line.
To do this, go to Settings » General and then click on the ‘Advanced’ drop down tab.
Next, type ‘inline-fields’ in the ‘Form CSS Class’ box (without quotes).
This will apply that CSS class to the form. Since WPForms includes styling for the ‘inline-fields’ class, it will automatically make your entire form display nicely on a single line.
After that, you can make your form even smaller by hiding the field labels.
Simply click on the ‘Fields’ navigation option, then select the ‘Advanced’ menu option, and click the ‘Hide Label’ toggle to turn it on.
Then, you need to do the same thing for all of the form field labels.
After that, in the same ‘Advanced’ section, you can enter text into the ‘Placeholder’ box.
This tells your users what each form field is for.
Once you’re done customizing your form, make sure to click the ‘Save’ button to save your changes.
If you’re using your form to generate leads, then you can connect your form to your email marketing provider. For more details, see our guide on how to create an email newsletter the right way.
Adding Your Single Line Form to Your WordPress Website
Now, it’s time to add your single line form to your website. You can add it to any page, post, or widget area.
We’re going to add it to an existing page, but the process will be similar if you’re adding it to another area of your WordPress blog.
Simply open up the page where you want the single line form to display, click the ‘Plus’ add block icon, and search for ‘WPForms’.
Then, click on the ‘WPForms’ block to add it to your site.
This brings up a drop down box to choose the single line form you created earlier.
Once you choose your form, the plugin will load a preview of your form inside the content editor. Then, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to make your new form live.
Now, you can visit your website to see your new form in action.
2021 is about to come to an end, and it has been an unprecedented year.
Many people started new businesses to tackle the challenges caused by the previous year’s circumtances. A record number of users took advantage of WPBeginner’s free resources to launch their businesses online.
We are ever more grateful for your continued support, which provides us inspiration and energy to move forward.
To keep up with our tradition, in this article we’ll share our staff-pick of the best of best WordPress tutorials on WPBeginner.
We’ll also share an overview of 2021 from our CEO to gain some perspective and reflect upon the progress.
WPBeginner Recap 2021 by Syed Balkhi
If I had one word to describe 2021, it would be perseverance.
It was an incredibly hard year for many people, including me, but as the year comes to an end, I am proud of all that we achieved.
The most important personal lesson for me this year is that Family is the best gift of life. None of my success would be possible without the support of my beautiful wife, Amanda, and my family.
2021 has been a very productive year for our businesses. We accomplished a lot, and I learned a ton.
WPBeginner turned 12 years old, and after five years we now have a brand new website design that’s focused on content discoverability.
As part of the site design, we switched our WordPress SEO plugin from Yoast to AIOSEO, we added a brand new mega menu, improved our site search, saw massive site speed improvements, and more.
Our WPBeginner Engage community on Facebook passed 81,000 members, and it’s now the largest WordPress facebook group (it’s free to join).
WPBeginner YouTube Channel passed 262,000 subscribers, and we passed 27 million video views.
WPBeginner – Fun Fact:
Our team has now grown to over 200+ people across 39 different countries. We’re hiring for full-time remote positions. If you’re interested, check out our Careers page.
Our growth is a direct result of the incredible growth WordPress has seen. It is the world’s most popular website builder and is now powering over 43.2% of all websites on the internet.
Overall, our plugins are now being used by more than 19 million websites (compared to 15 million from last year). That’s a growth of over 333,000 new websites every month.
Since we have over two dozen premium WordPress plugins, I will only share notable highlights from a select few.
WPForms
WPForms is the most beginner-friendly WordPress form builder in the market.
This year, we became only the 9th plugin in the history of WordPress to pass the 5 million active installs milestone, and only the second plugin to reach 10,000+ five-star ratings!
Our growth is proof that WPForms is hands down the best online form builder in the market (both WordPress and SaaS).
SeedProd is our drag & drop website builder for WordPress used by over 1 million websites.
It started out as a simple coming soon page plugin, but last year we completely revamped it to add a powerful landing page builder that was not just easy … but also FAST.
This year we took another major leap forward, and SeedProd has become a full no-code website builder for WordPress.
Now you can use it to create completely custom WordPress themes using our easy drag & drop interface (no coding needed).
Our team also added content personalization features that allows you to dynamically replace any text on page to offer a more personalized user experience.
SeedProd already comes with over 150+ Pro templates, 2 million stock photos, and every feature you need to quickly build a custom website using WordPress.
2022 is going to be a HUGE year for SeedProd. If you haven’t tried it yet, then you probably should take a look.
AIOSEO
AIOSEO is the original all-in-one WordPress SEO plugin that we acquired last year.
Our team completely revamped the plugin, and this year we passed the 3 million active installs milestone.
We added several really powerful features that no other WordPress SEO plugin has including the most powerful Redirection manager (including full site redirects for easy site migration), an easy headline analyzer to help you boost CTR / improve rankings, a robust WordPress breadcrumbs solution for both SEO & themes, advanced local SEO for WordPress module, HTML + RSS sitemaps, granular schema / priority settings control for SEO professionals, and dozens of other powerful features.
With all the changes we have made, I truly believe that using AIOSEO will give you a competitive advantage and help you get higher SEO rankings in 2022.
This is why all of our businesses have started switching away from Yoast to AIOSEO, including most recently WPBeginner.
I believe our biggest advantage over competitor SEO plugins is that we’re actually practitioners. Our content sites get over 100 million pageviews per year, so we are prioritizing items that actually get results!
Not to mention our prices are fair for small businesses, agencies and web pros.
Sometimes it’s easy to get complacent with the legacy tools we use in our businesses, but as you go into 2022, I highly recommend giving AIOSEO a try if your goal is to improve your SEO rankings (here’s a link to the free version).
MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. This year we passed the 3 million active websites milestone.
The biggest news in the Google Analytics world this year was GA v4, and it received mix reactions from marketers. That’s because Google removed several important features in the new version that existed in the classic version.
As the largest Google analytics integration plugin in the world, this made it tricky for us to navigate our product updates.
We worked closely with the team at Google to launch our GA4 integration with improved onboarding while also allowing the Dual Tracking mode for our users, so you can take advantage of new GA4 features while also keeping the data points from Universal Analytics that GA4 doesn’t yet support.
As far as I know, we’re the ONLY solution in market that lets you do dual tracking.
We also launched our brand new Media tracking addon that lets you track video engagement inside Google Analytics with just two clicks, a no-code Google Ad conversion tracking for tracking paid ad performance, and integrations with AIOSEO focus keyword tracking, AffiliateWP, EasyAffiliate, and more.
Other Notable Plugin Highlights
OptinMonster, our flagship lead generation & conversion optimization toolkit, launched a custom domains feature that helps you bypass ad-blockers and improve website speed. Also the new campaign builder improvements are really solid!
WP Mail SMTP, the most popular SMTP plugin for WordPress, now lets you track open and click data from default WordPress / website emails. Crazy to think something this critical was NOT possible until 2021!
Smash Balloon, the most popular social feeds plugin, launched a new feed customizer with built-in templates for Facebook feeds. Similar updates are coming for the popular Instagram plugin in 2022.
Acquisitions & Investments
This year, we added several premium WordPress plugins to our family of products.
SearchWP is the most powerful WordPress search plugin that lets you fully customize the WordPress search algorithm without any code. We have exciting plans for it in 2022 (see the full story).
A portfolio of premium plugins from Pippin Williamson including Easy Digital Downloads (popular eCommerce plugin for selling digital products), WP Simple Pay (easy plugin for accepting credit card payments), Sugar Calendar (simple event calendar plugin for WordPress), and AffiliateWP (affiliate management plugin for WordPress).
This was very special for me personally because we use these plugins to power our business. I wrote a background story here.
In 2018, I created the WPBeginner Growth fund to invest and advise other WordPress focused companies.
All of our portfolio companies did really well this year.
MemberPress is the most popular membership and course platform for WordPress. We passed $1 billion in creator earnings of which $600 million was generated in 2021. It’s mind-blowing to see the impact we’re making.
Uncanny Automator is a no-code workflow automation plugin for WordPress. It’s basically Zapier for WordPress without the high costs. This year the team made major improvements and added integrations with Google sheets, Slack, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
Advanced Coupons team launched a loyalty program solution for WooCommerce. This plugin is a must have for all WooCommerce store owners because it lets you add features like Loyalty program, BOGO deals, Scheduled coupons, shipping coupons, and more.
We’re also in the process of wrapping up few more growth fund investments that will be announced in the new year.
Want us to acquire or invest in your business? Learn more about the WPBeginner Growth fund where I invest in WordPress companies.
With that said, let’s take a look at 2021’s best WordPress tutorials on WPBeginner.
How to Make a Smart WooCommerce Product Search – A faster search on an eCommerce store boosts sales and conversions. In this article, we showed you how to add a smart WooCommerce product search to your online store.
How to Require an Email Address to Download a File in WordPress – Want to capture more leads on your website? In this tutorial we showed how to require email address to download a file in WordPress. This file could be lead magnet like ebook, PDF reports, music, software, or more.
How to Optimize Your WordPress Robots.txt for SEO – Robots.txt file plays an important role in SEO. In this tutorial, we showed how to properly optimize your WordPress robots.txt file for better SEO.
Ultimate Guide to Geolocation Targeting in WordPress – Geolocation targeting allows you to show personalized content to users. In this tutorial, we showed how to apply Geolocation targeting in WordPress for better user experience on your website.
April
How to Display Announcements in Your WordPress Blog – Want to promote a limited-time deal or a sale event on your site? In this article, we showed you how to easily display highly effective announcements on your WordPress website.
How to Add Business Hours in WordPress – With location search on the rise, adding business hours to your website helps more customers discover your business in search. In this article, we showed how to easily add business hours to your WordPress website.
How to Improve Organic Click Through Rate (CTR) in WordPress – Organic click-through rate is the average clicks a page gets when displayed in search results. In this article, we showed how to improve organic CTR for your WordPress website to get more free traffic from search engines.
How to Easily Embed Instagram in WordPress – Want to promote your Instagram account on your website? In this tutorial, we showed how to easily embed Instagram in WordPress and get more Instagram followers from your website.
How to Add FAQ Schema in WordPress – FAQ schema allows your frequently asked questions to be more SEO friendly. In this tutorial we showed how to easily add FAQ schema in WordPress.
How to Create a Landing Page in WordPress – Landing pages are the perfect tool to boost conversions for your sales and marketing campaigns. In this beginner’s guide we showed how to easily create a landing page with WordPress.
How to Check if Your Website is SEO Optimized – Want to see if your website is properly optimized for SEO? In this guide, we showed how to easily check if your website is optimized for SEO.
June
How to Create a Referral Program in WordPress – Referral programs or affiliate programs are a great way to get more people to promote your products online. In this article, we showed how to easily create a referral program in WordPress.
How to Create a Custom WooCommerce Cart Page – The default WooCommerce cart page is not optimized for conversions. In this guide, we showed you how to create a custom cart page in WooCommerce without writing any code.
How to Add Schema Markup in WordPress and WooCommerce – Schema markup helps search engines display your listings more prominently. In this article, we showed how to easily add Schema markup to your WordPress site or WooCommerce store.
How to Customize WooCommerce Checkout Page – The default WooCommerce checkout experience is quite limited. In this tutorial, we showed how to customize WooCommerce checkout page for more sales and conversions.
How to Display Breadcrumb Navigation Links in WordPress – Breadcrumb navigation tells users where they are on a website. They also appear in search results which make your listing more prominent. In this article, we showed how to display breadcrumbe navigation links in WordPress.
August
How to Update Your PHP Version in WordPress – Using latest version of PHP can significantly improve performance and security of your WordPress site. In this article, we showed how to easily update PHP version for your WordPress website.
Instapage vs Leadpages vs Unbounce vs SeedProd – In this guide, we compared the top landing page and lead generation tools on the market. See our detailed breakdown of Instapage vs Leadpages vs Unbounce vs SeedProd.
How to Generate More Leads with Free Online Calculators – Many famous bloggers now use free online calculators as a tool to capture more leads. In this guide, we showed how to easily generate more leads with free online calculators.
September
How to Make a High Converting Sales Funnel in WordPress – A sales funnel is the path a user takes on your website to become a customer. Optimizing this path can lead to higher conversions and more sales. In this tutorial, we walked you through creating a high converting sales funnel in WordPress.
How to Improve WordPress Search with SearchWP – The default WordPress search feature is not very effective. In this tutorial, we showed how to improve WordPress search with SearchWP.
How to Properly Move from Shopify to WooCommerce – We created a free Shopify to WooCommerce exporter to provide an easier way to migrate from Shopify. In this step-by-step guide, we showed how to easily move your online store from Shopify to WooCommerce.
How to Add a CRM on Your WordPress Site and Get More Leads – integrating WordPress with CRM software allows you to manage customer interactions on your website and follow up with leads. In this article, we showed how to add a CRM to WordPress site and get more leads.
October
How to Create a Paid Newsletter in WordPress – Paid newsletters are an incredibly popular way to make money online from your email subscribers, but using a platform like Substack can get expensive. In this guide, we walked through creating a paid newsletter in WordPress.
How to Find the Most Important Page of Your WordPress Site – Want to find out which page on your site is bringing you the most engagement, conversions, and sales? In this article, we showed how to easily find the most important page on your WordPress site.
How to Fix The Critical Error in WordPress – WordPress may sometimes show you a message that ‘There has been a critical error on this website. In this article, we showed how to easily troubleshoot and fix the critical error in WordPress.
How to Offer a Shipping Discount in WooCommerce – Do you want to offer a shipping discount to your customers? In this guide, we showed how to easily add a shipping discount offer to your WooCommerce store.
How to Set Up Business Call Forwarding From Your Website – Properly setting up call forwarding for your business phone number helps you offer better customer satisfaction. In this tutorial, we showed how to easily setup business call forwarding from your WordPress website
How to Add Product Tags, Attributes, and Categories to WooCommerce – Adding metadata to your WooCommerce products helps customers find what they’re looking for and improves SEO. In this guide, we explained how to add product tags, attributes, and categories in WooCommerce.
How to Submit your WordPress Site to Google News – If you run a news website, then adding your site to Google News can boost traffic. In this tutorial, we showed how to easily submit your WordPress site to Google News.
How to Do an SEO Competitor Analysis in WordPress – Want to see how your competitors are doing with their SEO? In this article, we showed how to easily do an SEO competitor analysis directly from your WordPress dashboard.
How to Properly Rename Categories in WordPress – As your site grows you may need to rename categories, merge them, or delete some categories. In this article, we showed you how to properly rename categories in WordPress.
