How To

7 Simple WordPress Tasks That Seem Difficult

This article was published in 2014. Tools, prices, and best practices have likely changed since.
7 Simple WordPress Tasks That Seem Difficult

WordPress is capable of an insane amount of functionality even just in its core. Sometimes you need to make changes on your WordPress website that seem like they’re going to be difficult to do. This can sometimes lead to you looking for a complex solution, when a very simple one already exists. The following are seven examples of seemingly difficult WordPress adjustments, that are actually incredibly simple tasks. You just have to know where to look.

  1. Change the number of posts shown per page on Blog index

    In the WordPress admin dashboard go to Settings > Reading and enter the number of posts you want shown per page where it says **Blog pages show at most **and then save your changes.

  2. Disable automatic comments and pingbacks for everything

    In the WordPress admin dashboard go to Settings > Discussion and in the Default article settings area uncheck Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks)Allow people to post comments on new articles and then save your changes. Now all of your newly created pages & posts will not have these enabled by default.

  3. Block or Unblock Search Engines from indexing your website

    In the WordPress admin dashboard go to Settings > Reading and toggle the checkbox to your preference next to Search Engine Visibility and then save your changes.

  4. How To Remove Gravatar Hovercards

    In the WordPress admin dashboard go to Settings > Discussion and then under the Avatars section uncheck Gravatar Hovercards “View people’s profiles when you mouse over their Gravatars” and then save your changes.

  5. View more Comments per page in WordPress Dashboard

    In the WordPress admin dashboard go to Comments and click on “Screen Options” in the top right, then change it to the number of Comments you’d like to view per page and click Apply. The same is true for Pages, Plugins, Posts, Media, etc.

  6. Disable default organization of uploads by month and year

    In the WordPress admin dashboard go to Settings > Media and then uncheck Uploading Files “Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders” and then save your changes.

  7. This is what happens in WordPress when the permalink URL you are trying to use has already been taken. You simply need to find whatever it is that’s taken the URL slug and trash it, then go into trash and delete it permanently so the permalink URL becomes available once again for use.

Have any others to add?

Please share them in the comments, I’d love to hear them!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I stop WordPress from automatically adding "-2" to the end of a permalink?

Find whatever post, page, or item is already using that exact permalink slug, move it to trash, then permanently delete it from the trash to free up the slug.

Where do I turn off search engine indexing in WordPress?

Go to Settings, then Reading, and toggle the Search Engine Visibility checkbox to your preference.

How can I disable pingbacks and comments by default on new posts?

Go to Settings, then Discussion, and uncheck the pingback and comment options under Default article settings so new posts won't have them enabled automatically.

How do I see more items per page in the WordPress admin dashboard, like comments or posts?

Click Screen Options in the top right of the relevant admin screen, such as Comments, and increase the number of items shown per page.

4 Comments

LarimarMedia2014-04-17
Changing admin name? Can You do this without changing name in database?
Kris Jolls2014-04-18
You can make a new admin for that purpose.
REFORMAT2014-04-20
Some nice little tips, on the commenting disabling i think it would be good if WordPress just had something like "Commenting ON/OFF" which then showed all the options if you turned it on. I feel the commenting page could be better done in the admin.
Fakharuddin2014-05-14
Hi Andy, All tips are simple but really important for a WordPress Blog. Thanks for the great stuff.