By Philip Yiga | July 20, 2017

Trackbacks and pingbacks actually allow websites/blogs to notify each other that they linked to a specific post. For example, if I wrote an article and added a link to a post on a friend’s blog then my blog will automatically send a ping to my friend’s blog and a pingback will appear in my friend’s comment-moderation queue with a link to my website.

However, today these features are mainly used by spammers to send trackbacks from spam-websites which actually affects your website/blog.

So, if you really want to disable trackbacks and pings on your older WordPress-posts then this article will show you how to do it in just a few simple steps.

 

Method-1: How to disable trackbacks and pings for WordPress posts:

 

1. Log into your WordPress-account: this first thing you will need to-do is logging into your WordPress account in order to access the dashboard as shown in the illustration below;

 

 

2. Go-to “All Posts”: after logging into your WordPress-account, go to Dashboard >> Posts >> All Posts and you will now gain access to a page listing all the posts as shown in the illustration below;

 

 

3. Click on “Screen Options”: After accessing the posts-page, click on the “Screen Options” button which is located at the top-right corner of the posts-window as shown in the illustration below;

 

 

Below is an illustration of what appears after clicking on the “Screen Options” button:

 

 

4. Enter 999 next to the ‘Number of items per page’ option: within the Screen-Options menu, go to the “Number of items per page” option-box and then enter “999“. Afterwards, click on the “Apply” button in order to apply the changes made as shown in the illustration below.

 

 

Note: after applying the changes made within the Screen-option menu, your posts-list will reload immediately and it will be capable of showing up to 999 posts on the same page.

 

5. Select all posts: you will now need to select all posts by simply checking the box marked as “Title” as shown in the illustration below. However you need to be very careful when doing this process so that you don’t delete your posts.

 

6. Select “Edit” form the Bulk Actions menu: after selecting all the posts within your website/blog, you will now need to select “Edit” from the Bulk-Actions drop-down list and then click on the “Apply” button in order to access a new window as shown in the illustrations below.

 

Below is an illustration of the window that will appear after clicking on “Edit” under the Bulk-Options and applying changes:

 

 

7. Disable the Pings-options: under the BULK-EDIT window, search for the Pings-option and after locating it change it to “Do not Allow” and then click on the “Update” button to save changes as shown in the illustration below;

 

 

Note: after pressing the “Update” button, WordPress will update and turn-off pings of all the selected posts. on top of that, if you have more than 999-posts on your WordPress-website then you will need to-go to the next page and repeat the same process until the entire website/blog is kept clean and free of any pings and trackbacks.

 

 

Method-2: How to turn-off Pingbacks and Trackbacks under Discussion-settings:

 

WordPress actually allows the user to turn-off pingbacks and trackbacks under the discussion-settings in order to prevent spammers from accessing your website/blog easily. So, below are some of the steps that you will need to follow when disabling pingbacks and trackbacks using this method;

 

1. Log into your WordPress account: the first thing you will need to-do is logging into your WordPress-account in order to access the dashboard-menu which also consists the settings-option.

 

2. Go to settings and click on Discussion: after logging into your WordPress-account go to the Dashboard >> Settings >> Discussion and you will now access the discussions-page as shown in the illustration below;

 

3. Go to “Default article settings” and disable pingbacks and trackbacks: under the Discussion-settings page, you will need to look for the “Default article settings” section and after locating it, uncheck the box next to “Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new articles” option as shown in the illustration below:

 

4. Save the changes made: after disabling the pingback and trackback feature under the “Default article settings” section, scroll downwards in order to access the “Save Changes” button. Press on the save-changes button in order to keep all made changes under this section.

 

Note: you should know that this method only turns-off pingbacks and trackbacks of any new articles published on your website/blog. In fact, all the old-posts within your website/blog will still have pingbacks and trackbacks enabled. Additionally, WordPress even adds trackbacks to ping-enabled posts whenever you link them to your own blog. So, this implies that you will also need to disable self pingbacks and trackbacks under your WordPress-account.

 

Conclusion: you will really need to disable pingbacks and trackbacks within your WordPress website/blog in order prevent spammers from sending multiple fake trackbacks and pings to your website. In fact, a spam-filter plugin or anti-virus on your WordPress website, some trackbacks may still gain access into your moderation-queue and this is not for your website/blog since it can lead to virus-attacks, blog-breakdowns and a lot more. So, the best way to avoid pingbacks and trackbacks is to entirely disable them within your WordPress-account in order to keep your website secure at all times.