Comment Sync

Disqus keeps your comments on its servers. Comment sync keeps a copy in your WordPress database too, as regular WordPress comments:

• Your data stays yours. If you ever leave Disqus, the comments are already in WordPress.
• Search engines can read them. SEO mode shows the synced comments to crawlers.
• It's instant. Disqus pushes each new comment to your site as it's posted. There's no scheduled job and no polling, so it doesn't use up your Disqus API limit.

Sync is optional and off until you turn it on. It's set up on the Comment sync page. The Import & export page, under Manage in the sidebar, has two one-off tools that use the same API keys: import past comments and export WordPress comments to Disqus.

• Set up sync
• Sync status
• How comments are saved
• Import past comments
• Export comments to Disqus
• While the official Disqus plugin is active
• Troubleshooting
• Related

Set up sync

You need a Disqus API application — see API keys.

1. On the Disqus → Comment sync page, under Disqus API, enter the Public key, Secret key and Admin access token.
2. Click Save at the top of the page. A Sync status card appears below the keys.
3. Click Turn on sync.

Sync changes to On, and Last event reads "Sync connection established with Disqus." once Disqus has confirmed your site. New comments posted on Disqus now appear under Comments in WordPress within seconds.

Upgrading from the official Disqus plugin?

If sync was already set up there, it keeps working — the webhook address and signing token are carried over. See Upgrading.

Sync status

You see	Meaning
Sync: On with Turn off sync	Disqus sends new comments to your site.
Sync: Off with Turn on sync	Sync is set up but paused, or not turned on yet.
"The webhook secret on Disqus is out of date" with Repair sync	The token Disqus signs with no longer matches your site's — for example after moving the site. Repair sync fixes it.
"Could not check the sync status" with Check again	The status couldn't be loaded. The notice gives the reason, such as "Could not reach Disqus." or a Disqus error. Check the API keys, then click Check again.
"Comment sync is paused while the official Disqus plugin is active"	Deactivate the official plugin — see below.

Below Sync, Last event shows the most recent sync event and when it happened, for example "Synced comment 6123456789 from Disqus." or "Could not sync a comment from Disqus: …". It reads None yet until the first event. Only the latest event is kept.

Turn off sync tells Disqus to stop sending comments. The connection on Disqus's side is kept, so Turn on sync turns it back on with one click. Comments already synced stay in WordPress.

How comments are saved

Each Disqus comment becomes a normal WordPress comment on the matching post:

WordPress field	Comes from
Post	The Disqus thread — matched by the thread ID saved on the post, or by the identifier the embed uses (<post ID> <guid>)
Author name	The Disqus author, or Anonymous
Author email	A placeholder — user-<id>@disqus.com, or anonymized-…@disqus.com for guests. Disqus only shares real addresses with specially approved applications.
Author URL, IP	From Disqus, when available
Content	The comment text, with unsafe HTML removed
Date	The Disqus post time
Parent	The Disqus parent comment, if it has already been synced — otherwise the reply is saved as a top-level comment
Status	Approved → approved, spam → spam, deleted or pending → pending

A comment that is edited or moderated on Disqus is updated in WordPress, not duplicated. Synced comments are marked with the user agent Disqus Sync Host and the comment meta dsq_post_id (the Disqus comment ID); posts get the meta dsq_thread_id. These are the same keys the official plugin used, so its synced comments are recognised.

Disqus remains the source

Sync copies from Disqus to WordPress. Editing or deleting a synced comment in WordPress doesn't change it on Disqus — moderate on Disqus, and the change syncs back.

Import past comments

Sync only catches comments posted after it's turned on. To pull in older ones, open Disqus → Import & export:

1. Under Import past comments, choose a From and To date. They default to the last 30 days; the end date can't be in the future.
2. Click Import comments.

The tool works through your Disqus comments 100 at a time and counts them as it goes, under Importing… (Imported once it's done) and Failed. You can Stop at any time and run it again later — comments already in WordPress are updated, not duplicated. You don't need to turn on sync first, only to save the API keys.

Keep the tab open while it runs. For a site with years of comments, import a year or so at a time.

No API keys yet?

Until the keys are saved on the Comment sync page, Import & export shows "Add your Disqus API keys first" instead of the tools. Its Add API keys button takes you there.

A comment can fail when its thread can't be matched to a post — for example a post that was deleted, or a thread created by a different site. Failures are counted but don't stop the run.

Export comments to Disqus

The other direction: send comments that exist only in WordPress — from before you used Disqus, say — to Disqus, so they show up in the Disqus thread.

1. On Disqus → Import & export, under Export comments to Disqus, click Export comments.
2. Wait for "Done." A progress bar shows how far it got, as "20 posts checked, 5 exported with 48 comments." You can Stop it at any time.

What is exported:

• Posts: published posts of every public post type that supports comments, ten at a time.
• Comments: approved comments and replies. Pingbacks, trackbacks and comments that came from Disqus are skipped.
• Data: author name, email, URL and IP, date, content and reply structure, in the WordPress export (WXR) format Disqus imports.

The upload happens from your server, so your access token never reaches the browser. Posts that fail are listed under "Some posts could not be exported" with the reason.

Run it once

Disqus processes imports in the background, and it can take a while before comments appear — don't export again in the meantime. Exporting the same comments twice may create duplicates on Disqus. See Disqus's guide About imports.

While the official Disqus plugin is active

The official plugin and this one use the same webhook address, so only one can receive comments. While the official plugin is active:

• a warning asks you to deactivate it, on every admin screen;
• Turn on sync, Turn off sync and Repair sync are disabled, and the Comment sync page says "Comment sync is paused while the official Disqus plugin is active";
• Import comments is disabled, and the Import & export page says "Importing is paused while the official Disqus plugin is active";
• displaying comments keeps working.

Deactivate Disqus Comment System and sync picks up where it left off.

Troubleshooting

Sync stays Off after Turn on sync. Check the three keys — the error message comes from Disqus. The API application must allow writing to your forum.

Sync is on, but comments don't arrive. Disqus must be able to reach https://your-site.com/wp-json/disqus/v1/sync/webhook:

• Your site must be public — Disqus can't reach localhost or a site behind a password.
• Security plugins and firewalls that block REST API requests or unknown POST requests can stop it. Allow that address.
• A caching or CDN layer must not cache POST requests to /wp-json/.

Last event says the forum doesn't match. The comment came from a Disqus site with a different shortname than the one saved. Check the shortname.

"No post found for Disqus thread". The Disqus thread doesn't belong to a post on this site — usually a post that was deleted, or a thread created on a staging copy.

Related

• Disqus Account — getting the API keys.
• SEO Mode — showing synced comments to search engines.
• Developer Docs — the webhook endpoint and the dcl_comment_synced action.