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WordPress’s blogging features are the reason WordPress was created in the first place. It started out as a blogging platform. It has since grown into a full-fledged content management system, and is fast becoming a platform on which applications can be built. Both the CMS use case and the applications use case present the possibility that a site owner might not need any of WordPress’s blogging features. While I think most sites have a use for a blog, (you need a way to keep your visitors up-to-date with what’s going on with your business or application, after all), the ability to disable blogging features until they’re desired is something that’s been lacking from the WordPress ecosystem for a long time.

As with everything else, there’s a plugin for that

With the Disable Blogging plugin, you now have the ability to disable all of WordPress’s blogging features non-destructively. This means that, if down the line you decide you want to add a blog to your site after you’ve disabled all the blogging features, you can do so by simply deactivating the plugin.

What features does it disable?

The plugin disables the following features by hiding them as long as it’s active.

  • • Posts and everything related to them
  • Comments and everything related to them
  • Comments from pages
  • Blog related widgets
  • Pingbacks, Trackbacks, and XML-RPC header links
  • Biographical info and Admin Color schemes on the user profile page
  • Press This Bookmarklet
  • Posts via email
  • Howdy, help tabs, and query strings from static resources

Think of this as the nuclear option if you want to do away with blogging on your site completely.

There are two things that immediately stand out during testing. The first is that logging in takes users to their profile page instead of the Dashboard. Second, the Dashboard and the link to it are gone. If you’re used to seeing the WordPress dashboard, running WordPress with it disabled can be a jarring experience, and, if you use this on a client’s site, and you’ve shown them how to update the site before adding this plugin, you’ll want to explain to them what they should expect before you enable this.

The WordPress dashboard serves a useful purpose, especially on sites where you need to quickly glance at things like e-commerce data, so I would only recommend using this in situations where your client isn’t depending on getting easy access to their data snapshots. It’s not that it’s not possible for them to navigate to the various sections of the administration panel to find their various stats, but it can be seen to add a layer of complexity.

If you’re looking for some user testing data before you make the leap, check out Jeff’s post on WordPress Tavern to get a sense of what it might be like to activate this plugin on your site.

All of this notwithstanding, if you know that, (at least for now), you don’t want a blog on your site, this is a good option that allows you to disable it until it’s needed.


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