pontocinza

When a post is published or updated, Internal Pingback Comments scans its content, finds all internal links, and creates a pingback-style comment on each linked post. It mimics native WordPress pingback behavior but eliminates the need for XML-RPC or outbound network requests.
Works with posts only. No settings page, no configuration.
How it works
The plugin parses post content with DOMDocument — not regex — so it handles real-world HTML correctly: nested tags, encoded entities, relative and protocol-relative URLs. For each internal link found, it inserts a pingback comment on the target post. The comment includes a short excerpt from the source post, with image captions (figcaption) stripped so they do not bleed into the pingback text.
Duplicate detection is precise: the source permalink is stored as private comment meta, and the plugin queries that meta before every insert. Republishing or updating a post never creates duplicate comments. New links added to an existing post will generate their own pingbacks on the next save.
What the pingback looks like to your theme
The comment is stored with <code>comment_type = 'pingback'</code> and auto-approved. Your theme renders it exactly as it would render a native pingback. If your theme does not display pingbacks, the comment will be stored in the database but remain hidden on the front end.
<h3>Disclaimer</h3>
This plugin is provided “as is”, without warranty of any kind. While best efforts have been made to ensure reliability and security, the author is not liable for any damages or losses resulting from its use.

Internal Pingback Comments

Detects internal links in posts and automatically inserts a pingback-style comment on each linked post. No XML-RPC required.

Amin Nazemi

Neatma

Protect your website from xmlrpc brute-force attacks,DOS and DDOS attacks, this plugin disables the XML-RPC and trackbacks-pingbacks on your WordPress website.
PLUGIN FEATURES 
(These are options you can enable or disable each one)
<ul>
<li>Disable access to xmlrpc.php file using .httacess file </li>
<li>Automatically change htaccess file permission to read-only (0444)</li>
<li>Disable X-pingback to minimize CPU usage </li>
<li>Disable selected methods from XML-RPC</li>
<li>Remove pingback-ping link from header</li>
<li>Disable trackbacks and pingbacks to avoid spammers and hackers</li>
<li>Rename XML-RPC slug to whatever you want</li>
<li>Black list IPs for XML-RPC</li>
<li>White list IPs for XML-RPC</li>
<li>Some options to speed-up your wordpress website</li>
<li>Disable JSON REST API</li>
<li>Hide WordPress Version</li>
<li>Disable built-in WordPress file editor</li>
<li>Disable wlw manifest</li>
<li>And some other options</li>
</ul>
What is XMLRPC
XML-RPC, or XML Remote Procedure Call is a protocol which uses XML to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism. 
Beginning in WordPress 3.5, XML-RPC is enabled by default. Additionally, the option to disable/enable XML-RPC was removed. For various reasons, site owners may wish to disable this functionality. This plugin provides an easy way to do so.
Why you should disable XML-RPC 
Xmlrpc has two main weaknesses
<ul>
<li>Brute force attacks: 
Attackers try to login to WordPress using xmlrpc.php with as many username/password combinations as they can enter. A method within xmlrpc.php allows the attacker to use a single command (system.multicall) to guess hundreds of passwords. Daniel Cid at Sucuri described it well in October 2015: “With only 3 or 4 HTTP requests, the attackers could try thousands of passwords, bypassing security tools that are designed to look and block brute force attempts.”</li>
<li>Denial of Service Attacks via Pingback: 
Back in 2013, attackers sent Pingback requests through xmlrpc.php of approximately 2500 WordPress sites to “herd (these sites) into a voluntary botnet,” according to Gur Schatz at Incapsula. “This gives any attacker a virtually limitless set of IP addresses to Distribute a Denial of Service attack across a network of over 100 million WordPress sites, without having to compromise them.”</li>
</ul>

Disable XML-RPC-API

The upgrade notice keeps coming back on every screen even after being dismissed. It looks very unprofessional to my clients and is embarrassing for me as a web developer, i would rather disable the plugin and use the code in a function. 

It should be permanently dismissible via a cookie, like for other plugins. It might be ok once, when the plugin is first installed or updated, but after that, it should never appear again. 

Good plugin, but upgrade nag is too annoying

A simple and lightweight plugin to disable XML-RPC API, X-Pingback and pingback-ping in WordPress 3.5+ for a faster and more secure website

Internal Pingback Comments vs Disable XML-RPC-API