How To Stop Self Pinging & Trackbacks In WordPress- a Simple Tutorial

Earlier pingbacks and trackbacks were useful as they enabled websites to learn that their posts or pages were linked on a different website.

Today, websites keep track of backlinks via SEO tools like SEMerush and Ahrefs (you can read my SEMrush vs Ahrefs guide next). And pingbacks and trackbacks are almost exclusively used by spammers to gain backlinks.

In this article, we’ll show you how to disable pingbacks and trackbacks and protect your website from spammers.

How To Disable Self-Pining And Trackbacks

There are two ways in which you can disable self-pinging and trackbacks.

Those are:

1. The plugin way

2. The manual way

We’ll cover them both.

#1- Disable Self-Pinging And Trackbacks With Plugins

Before we show you exactly what steps you need to take, we strongly recommend taking a backup. Installing plugins can cause websites to break.

Better be safe than sorry right?

Now, simply install the No Self Ping plugin on your website. And that’s it.

There is no configuration required. The plugin automatically disables self-pinging and trackbacks on your website.

While there are many other plugins on the WordPress repo that’ll help you achieve the same, we strongly suggest that you avoid them.

At the time of writing this, every pingback disabling plugin on the repo is falling behind in updates. Installing non-updated plugins can cause your website to be hacked.

That said, if you are not too keen on installing another plugin on your website then we recommend the manual way.

#2- Disable Self-Ping And Trackbacks Manually

If you want to go the manual way, there are two things that you need to do:

1. Disable pinging and trackbacks for new posts and pages;
2. Disable pinging and trackbacks for existing posts and pages.

a) Disable For New Posts And Pages

Go to Settings > Discussions. Then deselect the option, “Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new posts“.

Next, scroll down and click on Save Changes.

That’s all folks!

b) Disable For Existing Posts And Pages

Step 1: Go to Post > All Posts. At the upper right-hand corner of the page, select Screen Options.

As the Screen Options expand, you should see No of items per page.

Step 2: The number is set to 20 by default. Change it to 900. (If you have more than 900 posts, write down the exact number or a slightly bigger number).

Don’t forget to hit Apply.

Step 3: Next, select all the posts simply by click on the box that appears right beside Title.

Step 4: Click on Bulk Actions, and from the drop-down select Edit. Then, hit Apply. A new set of options should appear on the same page.

Step 5: Now, click on the drop-down beside Pings. Then select Do not allow and don’t forget to hit Update.

That’s it, folks! You have successfully disabled self-pinging and trackbacks.

Conclusion

Disabling self-pinging and trackbacks are just one way to stop a spammer from gaining backlinks from your website. We suggest taking security measures like installing a security plugin, using strong username & passwords, and keeping your plugins & themes updated to protect your website from spammers and hackers.

We hope you found my guide useful. If you have any questions, I”ll be happy to answer. Just drop a comment below.

Thanks for reading.

Nikola Roza

Nikola Roza is an affiliate marketer and blogger behind Nikola Roza- SEO for the Poor and Determined. He writes for bloggers who don't have huge marketing budgets and who still want to carve out a niche online and a better life for themselves. Learn about Nikola here, or read his blog posts and guides here.