💬 Don't disable your comments. Fix them.

Together with GraphComment.

Years ago, the comment section on WP Mayor was mostly spam.

We'd clear the queue, it would fill straight back up, and eventually we did what plenty of site owners do and switched comments off altogether.

Then readers started getting in touch to ask for them back. Comments had become less frequent by then, but the people who did leave them clearly valued having that space, so we turned them back on and went back to wading through the spam.

I suspect a lot of you have been stuck in that same trade-off, which is why I think switching comments off is the wrong fix. You lose the one place readers can talk back to you, and it's usually those conversations that keep them coming back.

That's why Tom has just reviewed GraphComment on WP Mayor.

It's a free plugin that replaces the native WordPress comment system with one designed to keep spam out in the first place. Instead of filtering spam once it arrives, it closes the standard WordPress comment endpoint entirely, so the bots have nothing to hit and your readers never face a CAPTCHA.

The free plan alone includes everything you might need today:

• AI moderation reads each comment alongside the article and the thread around it, then flags anything that needs a second look. Tom found it a real time-saver once the queue grew. The free plan includes 100 AI analyses a month.
• Every comment syncs back to your WordPress database automatically, unlike alternatives such as Disqus, which keeps them in its own ecosystem and shows ads on its free plan.
• Comments are indexable, so search engines and AI crawlers see the discussion under your posts rather than an empty embed.

Even if you never install GraphComment, that last point stuck with me. Your comments are full of real questions from real readers, which is exactly what AI tools look for when they cite a source, and most of us have been hiding them or deleting them for years.

Paid plans only raise the usage limits and add direct support, which is why Tom called Basic one of the best-value offerings he's seen from any WordPress plugin.

Read the full GraphComment review on WP Mayor →

One quick question before you go. Hit reply with "on" or "off" and tell me where your comments stand right now, and if you've switched them off, whether anyone has asked for them back.

Stay curious and keep building,

Mark from WP Mayor