How to Lazy Load Comments in WordPress (Plugin and No-Plugin Ways)

If your popular posts have hundreds of comments, you can lazy load comments in WordPress to make those pages much faster. Instead of loading every comment, avatar and reply form when the page opens, WordPress loads them only when the reader scrolls down to the comments or clicks a button. The difference in site loading speed can be dramatic on busy posts. Here’s how to do it, and the SEO trade-off you should know about first.

Quick answer: Install the free Lazy Load for Comments plugin, then go to Settings > Discussion and choose to load comments on scroll (best for SEO) or on click (fastest). You can also split comments into pages under Settings > Discussion > Break comments into pages, which needs no plugin at all.

Why lazy load WordPress comments?

Every comment adds HTML, a Gravatar image request and database queries. On a post with 300 comments, that can mean hundreds of extra image requests and a much heavier page. Lazy loading comments helps:

• Faster first load: the article appears quickly because the comments aren’t part of the initial page.
• Better Core Web Vitals: less HTML and fewer images can improve Largest Contentful Paint and Interaction to Next Paint. Read more about Core Web Vitals.
• Less server load: if you don’t use a caching plugin, every page view runs the comment queries. Lazy loading skips them for readers who never scroll that far.

If you test page speed before and after, you’ll usually see a clear improvement on comment-heavy posts.

How to lazy load comments in WordPress with a plugin

WordPress has lazy-loaded images (including Gravatars) and iframes natively since WordPress 5.5, but it doesn’t lazy load the comments section itself. The Lazy Load for Comments plugin adds that in one step.

1. Go to Plugins > Add New, search for Lazy Load for Comments, then install and activate it. Check that it’s been tested with your WordPress version.
2. Go to Settings > Discussion and find the new lazy load option.
3. Choose how comments load: On scroll, On click, or disabled.
4. Save changes and clear your cache.

I prefer On scroll. Comments appear automatically when the reader reaches them, so it feels natural, and there’s no extra click. With On click, comments stay hidden behind a button, which is fastest but hides them from many readers.

Lazy load comments without a plugin

If you’d rather not add a plugin, these built-in and lightweight options help too:

• Paginate comments: in Settings > Discussion, tick Break comments into pages and set, for example, 50 top-level comments per page. Each page stays small, and every comment page remains crawlable.
• Use CSS content-visibility: add #comments { content-visibility: auto; contain-intrinsic-size: auto 2000px; } to your theme. The browser skips rendering the comments until they’re near the screen, while the HTML stays in the page for search engines.
• Turn off Gravatars: in Settings > Discussion, untick Show Avatars to remove all those image requests.

We’ve also tried showing comments on a new page and loading Disqus comments on click, which are different approaches to the same problem.

The SEO downside of lazy loading comments

Comments can help a post rank. Readers’ questions often contain long-tail keywords you didn’t use in the article. If comments only load after a click, Googlebot won’t see them, because it doesn’t click buttons. Google renders pages with JavaScript and generally sees content that loads on scroll, but it isn’t guaranteed.

So:

• If your comments add useful content and long-tail traffic, use On scroll, pagination or content-visibility.
• If your comments are mostly short “thanks” notes, On click is fine, and the speed gain is worth it.

Check the result with the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console: view the rendered page and confirm your comments are there.

Frequently asked questions

Does WordPress lazy load comments by default?

No. WordPress lazy loads images and iframes, including avatars in comments, but the comment text and form load with the page.

Will lazy loading comments hurt my SEO?

It can if comments only load on click, because Google won’t see them. Loading on scroll, or paginating comments, keeps them visible to search engines.

Do I still need a caching plugin?

Yes. Lazy loading comments reduces page size, but a caching plugin such as LiteSpeed Cache or WP Rocket is still the biggest single speed boost for WordPress.