How to Prevent BuddyPress From Changing Comment Author URLs

Did you know that BuddyPress changes the URL for comment authors to point to the user’s BuddyPress profile? It does this by filtering the ‘comments_array’ in the bp-core-filters.php file to insert BuddyPress URLs for blog post comments:

add_filter( 'comments_array', 'bp_core_filter_comments', 10, 2 );

For most BuddyPress sites this is a good thing, since it emphasizes users’ profiles and interaction on the site, helping members connect to each other on the social network. However, there are some WordPress sites that take a different approach to comments. People don’t always leave comments purely to join a conversation. Unfortunately, many users are motivated, at least partially, by having a link back to their own sites.

If you want to stop BuddyPress from changing the comment author URL to the profile link, it’s as simple as removing the filter:

remove_filter( 'comments_array', 'bp_core_filter_comments', 10, 2 );

Add that to your bp-custom.php file or create your own little functionality plugin for it.

As noted by @modemlooper in the comments, if you go the custom plugin route, you’ll need to make sure that BuddyPress is active before removing the filter:

function remove_url() {
remove_filter( 'comments_array', 'bp_core_filter_comments', 10, 2 );
}
add_action('bp_include', 'remove_url');

Once activated you should see that the comments now pull the url from the admin area profile.php page or the URL the user has entered in the comment form.