Disable Pingbacks and Trackbacks Comments is a common choice for many website administrators due to their potential annoyance or susceptibility to spam. Depending on your preferences, you can fully deactivate all aspects of WordPress pingbacks or selectively disable specific features, like self-pingbacks while retaining them for external sites.
A WordPress pingback is a notification sent by WordPress to other WordPress blogs whenever a link to their content is created. This alert appears in the comments section of the linked post, functioning as WordPress’s version of a trackback.
Completely turn off all WordPress pingbacks
Follow these steps:-
1. Access your WordPress dashboard.
2. Navigate to Settings > Discussion.
3. Uncheck the box labeled “Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new articles.”
By following these steps, you can effectively disable all pingbacks on your WordPress site, managing the interaction with these notifications according to your preferences.
Read Also: Adding Google Analytics tracking Code in WordPress site
Complete Removal of Pingbacks and Trackbacks from WordPress Themes:
To eliminate pingback URLs from WordPress themes, there are two methods available:
Edit the Header File:
Access the WordPress admin page and go to “Appearance.”
Click on “Edit” and select the “header.php” file.
Use Ctrl + F or Command + F to search for “ping” within the “header.php” file.
Locate the line of code: <link rel=”pingback” href=”<?php bloginfo( ‘pingback_url’ ); ?>” />
Delete this line from the “header.php” file and save the changes.
Edit the Functions File:
Similarly, access the WordPress admin page and navigate to “Appearance.”
Click on “Editor” and select the “functions.php” file.
Insert the provided code snippet into the “functions.php” file.php
function remove_x_pingback($headers) {
unset($headers[‘X-Pingback’]);
return $headers;
}
add_filter(‘wp_headers’, ‘remove_x_pingback’);
Save the changes made to the “functions.php” file.
Utilizing either method mentioned above will effectively remove pingback URLs from your WordPress website.
