Disqus pronounced “discuss” is a popular third-party commenting system for WordPress. If you’ve been browsing the web for more than a week, then you’ve probably come across a site that’s using Disqus. A lot of popular sites including CNN, The Next Web, Bloomberg, CNBC, The Atlantic, and now WPBeginner are using Disqus. In this article, we will show you how to add Disqus comment system in WordPress. We will also discuss the reasons why we switched to using Disqus.
Update: We no longer use Disqus on our site. Here are the reasons why we switched away from Disqus.
Adding Disqus Commenting System in WordPress
Adding Disqus commenting system to WordPress is very easy. First thing you need to do is go to Disqus website and login or signup for a new account. Once you are logged in, click on For Websites link next to the Disqus logo.
On the next screen, you need to click on Add Disqus to Your Site button next to your profile pic on the top right corner of the screen.
This will take you to a signup form where you need to provide your website information. Provide the title of your blog or website and then choose a unique URL for your website on the disqus commenting system. This unique URL will be the place where you can access all your comments after you have installed Disqus on your site. Lastly choose a category for your website. Once you are done, hit the Finish Registration button.
After the registration, you will be asked to choose your platform. You need to click on WordPress, and it will show you further instructions to setup Disqus commenting system on your WordPress site. Don’t worry we will walk you through these instructions.
Now that you have registered your site for Disqus commenting system, it is time to connect your WordPress site to the Disqus platform. To do this, you need to install and activate the Disqus Comment System plugin. Upon activation, go to Comments » Settings and sign in with your Disqus account.
Once you are logged in, you will be shown the site you registered for Disqus commenting system. Select the site and click on the next button to finish the set up.
That’s all. You have successfully added Disqus comment system to your site. You can see it in action by visiting any post on your site, and you will see Disqus comments instead of WordPress comments on your site.
Exporting Older WordPress Comments into Disqus
Since Disqus commenting system takes over the display of comments on your WordPress site, this means that the comments stored on your WordPress site will not be visible to users. To fix this, you will have to export those comments to Disqus commenting system. In WordPress admin area, go to Comments » Disqus and click on the plugin settings tab on the top right corner of the screen.
On the plugin’s settings page, scroll down to Import and Export section and click on Export Comments button. This will initiate the import process and all your old WordPress comments will be exported to Disqus commenting system.
Moderating Disqus Comments
You can moderate Disqus comments by visiting Comments » Disqus. There you will find a button linking to your comment administration page on Disqus. This is where you can approve, spam, or delete comments.
Troubleshooting Disqus Comment Display Issue
On some WordPress themes Disqus comment area may appear wider than rest of the post and page area. To fix this, you need to figure out the width of the content area in your theme and then add this CSS into your theme or child theme‘s stylesheet.
#disqus_thread {
margin: 0 auto;
max-width: 604px;
}
This CSS sets max-width of the comment area to 604px and centers it to the screen. Your theme may have different width so you will have to adjust it accordingly to meet your needs.
We hope this article helped you add Disqus comment system in WordPress. If you liked this article, then subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials or join us on Twitter and Google+.
Aaron Jane says
Hello,
I’m getting lot of spams on my site with the default comment system, though I have akismet installed. Thought about using Disqus, but I see that Disqus is no longer used by wpbeginner. Can you share why you moved away from disqus ?
Thanks Aaron.
WPBeginner Support says
Here is why we switched away from Disqus.
Admin
Theo says
Thanks a whole lot for this post. I’ve decided to start using disqus for some of the same reasons you mentioned here. This was helpful!
Mohammed Haseeb says
Okay. I know Disqus is good but I have a question. Is there a way to remove hyperlinks from profile names of people commenting on my blog posts. Here is the link to my blog
AlleXyS says
Hello … I tried some days to activate disqus on my website. CAN’T , due of a issue in database…. I install disqus (plugin) => comments => disqus => tell me to upgrade my DATABASE !! I click UPGRADE, but nothing happening, my website tell me that this page can’t be found .. So, I think the script can’t run
here I can’t arrive : http://cdn2.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/disqus-signin.png
WPBeginner Support says
Please contact Disqus support they would be better able to help you with that.
Admin
WPBeginner Staff says
Disqus.
Adjie Al-Faruq says
how to fix “unable to connect to the disqus api servers”
Bora M. Deniz says
Hi, very simple expression and useful article. I’m between jetpack plugin and disqus system .Which one is the more useful for visitors and further SEO of website ?
Santhosh Veer says
when i try to import the worpdress comments i show error please help me to fix this
Andreia Franco says
I have disqus on my blog for a couple of months, since then I just have received lots of spams and disqus doesn’t work at all. I see disqus on other wordpress blogs and it seem to work very well. I do not know what to do with mine. I always go back to moderate and try to activate it but it doesn’t work, still. Do you have any suggestions?
couture31 says
SOOO glad to have you all as a resource! I have transitioned to a self-hosted WP site and I visit your site daily for tips! Thanks for your help and patience…the step by step directions are awesome!! So grateful!
WPBeginner Staff says
Edit the post and make sure comments are enabled for that post. Also go to Settings > Discussion and make sure that the box next to ‘Automatically close comments on articles older __ days’ is unchecked.
UgochukwuEmmanuelAgbams says
Thanks for this tutorial. I have earlier registered on disqus, installed and activated the plugin, but ny problem now is, at the footer of my blog post after disqus, I have a report that says, ‘comments are closed’, and another issue is, disqus does not sync with my loged in users. What should I do about this?
Kerryvaaine says
It is available as a plugin in wordpress.
Neal Umphred says
My experience trying to get Disqus onto my site does not resemble anything like what you have written above. It’s an hour later and I can’t get anything happening . . .
Teresa Robeson says
I sympathize because it is the same for me. There is no “plugins” link on my admin page, nor is there any option for adding Disqus (or anything else) under the Comments link. Maybe it’s because I’ve only got a free WP site, but I didn’t have this much trouble installing Disqus on my Blogger site. There are days I really hate WordPress.
I hope you got it figured out since you posted 2 weeks ago.
Dennis says
I personally have used jetpack comments for comment on site to handle spam. Most persons I have noticed are usually uncommon with the disqus concepts and dislike the sign up process, very few notice the ‘guest’ option. But I’m looking into using Vanilla comments by integrating vanilla forums into my wordpress website and keep the comment actions completely under my control simples like a good option to me so far from testing.
Aaron Aarons says
I don’t have my own blog but I regularly post comments to blogs that use Disqus. Quite frankly, there is so much I dislike about Disqus that I would never use it, without major future improvements, in a blog I had any control over.
1) Comments either don’t show up at all in Google searches on phrases within them, or they show up as part of the page of the particular commenter’s Disqus comments, rather than as part of the page they comment on.
2) If I save a web page that has Disqus comments, the comments are not saved with the page, and the ability to retrieve the comments depends on the future maintenance of such comment threads by Disqus.
3) I can save a page with comments as a PDF, but then the information about the precise date and time of a comment can no longer be seen even by a mouse-over (nor by looking at the non-existent source), so all one sees is how many days, weeks, months or years before the time the page was saved the comment was posted. This makes it impossible to follow the chronology of a discussion.
4) In one case, a blogger lost his domain name and had to get a new, different one. Since then, the old pages can be accessed with the new domain name, but the old comments do not show. There is a way to get to the original comment thread, but it’s not accessible to the casual user.
There are other, less serious, annoyances, that have slipped my mind for the moment.
If I am wrong about any of the items I had listed as problems above, I’d like to know.
Earl Henson says
I wonder if Google traffic is lower than it would be if comments don’t show in Google? And of course comments would be the same with Disqus but wouldn’t they become higher over time as more people discover this blog? But if NEW users can’t discover this blog because the comments are not Google searchable…..
Codex73 says
Recently installed “Disqus Comment System” WordPress plugin, it displays correctly and accepts comments. When I reply through the Dashboard, these won’t show on thread. Should replies be handled directly in the Disqus thread instead?
Bricky says
Is there a way to display a number in front of each comment using disqus?
Metal Mofos says
What about SEO?
Dave says
Even with Disqus, the comments are fully indexed along with the page. Do a View Source of this page to see for yourself.
Rob Orr says
That’s not necessarily true. It’s possible that Google will index your comments, but I’ve seen many more that are not indexed as opposed to those that are.
WPBeginner Staff says
We wrote about this plugin in our guide on how to add Google+ comments in WordPress.
Animish says
Thanks for this useful article. But there is one question stuck in my mind. Does Disqus affect the load time of posts? Because it uses iframe to load comments. Didi you notice any difference?
Jeanz says
Hello Syed. What you think about this plugin? – WordPress Comments Evolved – that allow to display G+ comments, FB comments, WordPress and Disqus. I can’t find any useful review in google search, thanks
Mehmet Fatih Yorulmaz says
I have two problems about Disqus (which I already use):
First, it does not allow me to convert my commenters to subscribers by adding a checkbox to the bottom of the comment box. Normally, I was using Mailchimp Comment Optin plugin for this. Also, it does not work with “Comment Redirect by Yoast” plugin…
Second problem is, Subscribe button is difficult to notice for inexperienced commenters. In wordpress comment box, the simple checkbox for subscribing to the replies was very easy to notice. Also, guest commenters are by default subscribed to all comments. And they are not given option to subscribe to “only replies”. Last, but not least, the word “subscribe” is very ambigious. What is it? Subscribe to my site, subscribe to my newsletter or subscribe to the comments?…
Third issue is, language support. My site is in Turkish and I can select Disqus interface to be in Turkish. But, when my not English speaking visitor hits “Subscribe”, they are sent an English confirmation email. Or when they wanna edit their subscription preferences, again they are being forwarded to an all Engish page.
I appreciate your thoughts on these issues…
Thanks
WPBeginner Staff says
Manuel, we haven’t noticed any decline in the number of comments we receive on WPBeginner.
Manuel Echeverry says
its true but there a some WP pages that claim that have to disable disqus because the visitors dint like it. I personaly use Disqus in my site and have no bat experiences until now, but its something that we have to pay attention
Manuel Echeverry says
I love disqus but the are some people that claim is hard to use por the blog visitors making you lose commenters, wath do you know about that
WPBeginner Staff says
No actually the number of comments is nearly the same as before. There is less spam though.
Gagan Masoun says
Now, you are also getting too many comments after adding Disqus comment system…
khoaplus says
Disqus can not be integrated with CommentLuv
Muhammad Tahir says
Thanks your articles are awesome
Golam Rabbani says
I am going to add disqus in my blog. I think it can help me to avoid spaming comment. Thanks for your nice tips.
WPBeginner Staff says
Please clear your browser cache or try in a different browser.
WPBeginner Staff says
Andor, we checked the plugin with floating social bar. Both plugins are working as expected. Are you its Disqus causing the issue?
Andor Nagy says
Pretty sure. For me it isn’t floating neither here nor on my website. I maybe caused by browser cache.
WPBeginner Staff says
We will try to look into this in some future article. Meanwhile you may contact disqus support they may already have a solution for this.
Nicolas Messer says
Could you maybe just go into some more details regarding custom post types…I was searching for a solution how to get previously made comments on a CPT into disucss but didn’t have any luck and read in the other post that you ran into that same issue as well. Thanks a lot!
Peder B. Helland says
Very nice article! I love Disqus – it both works and looks great.
Andor Nagy says
Thanks for the tutorial! Unfortunately if you install the plugin, the floating social bar won’t float anymore.
WPBeginner Staff says
No it does not.
Lại Đình Cường says
Does Disqus make my blog slow?
WPBeginner Staff says
Yes you should activate sync Disqus with WordPress.
vinod says
Thank you for the article.
I have more than 75000 (75k) comments and I am unable to import them to disqus from my wordpress site. It would be great if you can explain how large number of comments can be imported and integrated seamlessly between wordpress and disqus.
Thanks a lot.
WPBeginner Staff says
No you don’t need Akismet anymore.
WPBeginner Staff says
Disqus improves page speed which is good for SEO. When a user leaves a comment on your blog you can get their email from the Disqus admin page.
bouncedancer says
Thank you for this very informative article. You guys epitomize what’s great about the internet.
Abhisek Padhi says
Disqus was important for Wp-Beginner To Scale up. I wasn unable to properly implement disqus SSO (Single sign on) feature. First I requested disqus to enable the SSO for my site, then i created an application, copied the api keys to my disqus plugin. Added logo’s. Now when a user tries to use SSO in disqus comments a login windows opens and if he/she is a new user, he/she register’s then log in. Here the problem arises, after logging in, the window must close automatically and the user should be redirected to the page from which he left, unfortunately the login windows don’t dissapear, rather it log’s into WordPress dashboard, which is very undesirable behavior. They (disqus) recommend using window.close() javascript, but i couldn’t figure out how to use and where. See, if you could help. This solution will help a lot of wordpress users using disqus.
WPBeginner Staff says
We will try to look into it.
kathir says
Hi sir, I would like to know disqus affects seo and when a user registers can I get their info like email id and name etc ?
Declan Wilson says
Do we still need to use Akismet to filter spam or can we cancel it if we move over to Disqus?
Jesse Brede says
Yeah, I use Disqus on any site that has an active community. The lack of visual control is a bit frustrating, but like iOS, the uniform layout is an advantage as more sites adopt it.
OtakuPT says
One question, “Synk Disqus with wordpress” should i activate this option
or not?
I make this question because of SEO, if i activate this option the comments appear in the source code of the page, if i don’t activate the comments do not appear in the source code.
How does this interfere with search engine optimization? And what is the better option?
Best regards
Luca Rosaldi says
I love Disqus. One huge upside for the end users is that they are automatically updated whenever someone replies to a comment, in an unobtrusive way. It’s like a digital hub for comments.
Jay Castillo says
I also started to use Disqus late last year because of comment spam (I get about 50 to 100 each day even with GASP and commentluv), and switching to Disqus really helped. I then noticed that even Pat Flynn started using it on SPI (also because of comment spam), and now WPBeginner. Makes me feel I made the right choice.
One more advantage with Disqus is registered users can go back and edit their comments just in case of wrong spelling/grammar, etc.
By the way, thanks for the tip on how to prevent Disqus from overriding the comment count. I didn’t know there was a way to do that until now, and I can’t wait to try it out. Thanks for sharing!
RW says
thanks for this post. I haven’t used it before but I’m going to give it a shot. I appreciate you posting these kind of topics.