I Luv Your Comments

January 7th, 2008 · by David Bradley

Comment Luv

There are lots of benefits to commenting on this site, some of them are altruistic, others are ephemeral, some of them are automatic. Take the effect on the Top Commentators Plugin, for instance. If you comment frequently, then the blogging software picks up on your dedication and gives you a link anchored on your name to the web address, near the top of the sidebar on the site’s homepage. Given the relatively high rank and traffic levels of this blog, that’s got to be worth a few moments regular commenting hasn’t it?

And there’s more. As of January 7, I’ve installed a new plugin called CommentLuv. Now, when you comment you get the chance to display the latest post from your own site automatically, directly below your comment. You can disable this feature if you’re bashful, but so long as you enter a valid URL when you leave a comment, and that site has a feed, it will pull up the latest headline from your site.

The screengrab below shows a dummy comment I made on another post using my Sciencebase science site as the test link. The highlighted text shows you the option to switch off this feature.

Comment Luv Option

The image below shows the results of my dummy post to this site. This time, the highlighter shows the most recent headline pulled directly from Sciencebase, at the time of posting, to get your next post headline to display all you have to do is comment again.

Comment Luv Result

Now, I realize that both plugins are open to abuse, but do rest assured, I keep a close eye on all incoming comments and emails and will protect readers from the seedier stuff that might slip through. So, what are you waiting for, give it a try and leave a comment. You could use the opportunity to let me know if there are any other great plugins to boost your blog on this site.

36 responses so far ↓

Calaelen // Jan 7, 2008 at 3:03 pm

Very interesting plugin. I will give it a try.

“it will update next time that site updates”

About that: Does the plugin pulls every feed-url in the comments each time someone reloads the page? (huge time/traffic problem?)

Calaelen’s last blog post..Blogparade: 7 Antworten eines WoW-Bloggers
Wayne Smallman // Jan 7, 2008 at 3:05 pm

Sort of reminds me of Digital Point forums, which lists your recent ‘blog article, but only for those that have posted the required number of forum comments…

Wayne Smallman’s last blog post..Open Source Hardware Enters the Mainstream [del.icio.us]
David Bradley // Jan 7, 2008 at 4:26 pm

Wayne, yes, similar, except I guess there’s no one ever likely to post more than a handful of comments on a wee site like this. The plugin could presumably be hacked to add a conditional tag for larger more active sites…maybe one day.

Calaelen, I may have that aspect of it wrong. Check back and do a page refresh when you next update your blog and let us know if it’s showing the new post on this comment.
Andy Bailey // Jan 7, 2008 at 9:38 pm

thanks for using CommentLuv!
just to clear up any questions, it only parses the feed at the time of the comment being submitted otherwise it would take too long to parse every time the page loads.
There’ll be an update soon to add some AJAX to the equation so it’ll be even faster at adding the last blog post.

Andy Bailey’s last blog post..Beginners AJAX Tutorial Series Part 5
David Bradley // Jan 7, 2008 at 10:38 pm

Thanks for dropping by Andy and for the clarification! Great plugin!

db
Robert Irizarry // Jan 8, 2008 at 1:19 am

Interesting plugin, David! I can certainly see it as a great tool for encouraging comments in the right blog niche. In my case, not many of my readers have blogs although there are a few fellow guitar bloggers out there who might be enticed to comment more frequently by implementing it.

I’ll have to give it some thought although I’m also concerned about the potential for abuse. A conditional statement (as Wayne suggests) would help here but it seems like there’s a potential increase in burden on the blogger. For example, a comment that passes spam tests may end up with a link to an article post that readers find offensive.

Robert Irizarry’s last blog post..Make Your Own Electric Guitar - A Review
David Bradley // Jan 8, 2008 at 7:36 am

Of course, commenters without a blog of their own could add a link they feel would produce a useful headline, but I see what you mean about a comment passing spam tests that nevertheless throws up an offensive headline

db
Stock Market Software // Jan 23, 2008 at 4:11 pm

I really like the Comment luv plugin but am scared of it hurting my site… as a compromise I do it on about 1/2 my sites and not on the others… it’s good for getting readers… bad for SEO… so I guess it’s all about what you’re going for

Stock Market Software’s last blog post..AbleSys Corporation Trading System Software
David Bradley // Jan 23, 2008 at 4:43 pm

Mr Market-Software, or shall I call you Justin, I’m not entirely sure why it would cause any SEO harm to your site to run Comment Luv unless someone from a dodgy site were posting comments, but then some bloggers actually check out the sites to which their commenters are linking before up-moderating comments. I was in two minds about approving your post given your pseudonym, but you got through the meta filter.

db
David Bradley // Jan 23, 2008 at 4:44 pm

Mr Market-Software, or shall I call you Justin, I’m not entirely sure why it would cause any SEO harm to your site to run Comment Luv unless someone from a dodgy site were posting comments, but then some bloggers actually check out the sites to which their commenters are linking before up-moderating comments. I was in two minds about approving your post given your pseudonym, but you got through the filters.

db
Hersh Bhardwaj // Feb 1, 2008 at 12:34 am

I have just started using it on my blog. But when I use my comment on a blog with the plug-in, my post link doesn’t show the actual URL but some strange feedburner feed?

Hersh Bhardwaj’s last blog post..Are You a Fluorescent Pig, or, a Purple Cow? Ebay Knows!
David Bradley // Feb 1, 2008 at 7:34 am

Hersh, the reason it’s doing that is because the plugin uses your RSS newsfeed to grab the most recent headline and your site’s feed is using Feedburner. You can make it work by adding a CNAME in your hosting and then doing a mod at Feedburner to make that system represent your RSS items as if they were properly hosted on your blog. I may write about this in a little more detail soon, if anyone puts in a request…

db
japanese ice cream // Feb 10, 2008 at 11:29 pm

Comment Luv seems a great idea but how come it adds the NoFollow tag to the link, isn’t that kinda the opposite of what Comment Luv is all about?

japanese ice cream’s last blog post..Japanese ice-cream parlour
David Bradley // Feb 11, 2008 at 3:04 pm

“japanese ice cream”, it’s not supposed to add nofollow, this blog should be adding dofollow, let me investigate…

db
japanese ice cream // Feb 12, 2008 at 6:49 am

Thanks for looking, David. I actually can’t tell on your site but others that have CommentLuv and also let you edit the comment - when I have gone to edit there is a NoFollow tag on the link. I thought this to be a bit strange seeing the ideals of commentluv.
cheers from Australia.

japanese ice cream’s last blog post..Japanese ice-cream parlour
Elliott Russell // Mar 19, 2008 at 3:35 pm

I have some of the same feelings about it. I want to see if the plugin helps peoples blogs or hurts them.

Elliott Russell’s last blog post..Challenge: Drink Only What is Free
Furniture Fan // Jun 10, 2008 at 6:19 pm

I am trying to figure out how to change that as well. Feedburner is great, but here I would rather have the direct link to the post.

Furniture Fans last blog post..Modern Bathroom Vanities from La Roccia Part 3
acakadut // Jun 12, 2008 at 8:24 am

I’m using this plugin as well. this is a great “reward” for our visitors, don’t you think?

acakaduts last blog post..XToMe 1.0.2.120
David Bradley // Jun 12, 2008 at 8:29 am

Yep, I think it is, it improves connectivity between blogs, and connectivity means community.
pening // Jun 23, 2008 at 4:25 am

Just don’t forget to disable the feedburner ‘Item Link Clicks’ under the ‘FeedBurner StatsPRO’ or else, the credit will go to feedburner instead of your blog.

penings last blog post..Vostro 1400 Bios Update
David Bradley // Jun 23, 2008 at 7:52 am

Could you explain what you mean pening?
Gavin // Jun 28, 2008 at 6:33 am

CommentLuv is a great idea, as long as you have the time to keep on top of comment moderation

Gavins last blog post..Top 20 football misses of all time
David Bradley // Jun 29, 2008 at 8:17 pm

Gavin, yes you do have to keep on top of comments, but they’re still at a relatively low rate on this blog, so not a problem yet.
Halim-Belajar SEO // Jul 12, 2008 at 1:35 am

Actually I’m found this site via Google search engine. I’m use “Top Commentator” term to find blog that allow backlink through Top Commentator.

So, this method sure work to attract more traffic.
Susan // Jul 13, 2008 at 3:34 am

I’m glad I found this site I hope CommentLuv has been working out for you.
David Bradley // Jul 14, 2008 at 8:12 am

Susan, glad to welcome you to the Sciencetext community. I think the real benefit of CommentLuv is for the reader and these who comment, opening up the discussion to the wider blogosphere.
JS@BusbySeoChallenge // Aug 18, 2008 at 5:28 am

Interesting!
CommentLuv helps you reward your commentators by separating their name from their keywords in the link to their site. This gives them improved anchor text, which can help their site rank higher in the search engine results.
You can now leave a comment with your name as well as a keyword of your choice here and get a PR5 link back to your site! How cool is that? People pay big bucks for that and all you have to do is comment here.

JS@BusbySeoChallenges last blog post..Busby SEO Challenger Sphere Going for the Top Spot Again
David Bradley // Aug 22, 2008 at 8:22 am

For now, I’ve disabled CommentLuv it was interfering (at the php/server level) with another aspect of the site. A hack will hopefully get around the problem. In the meantime, I’d be interested to know if anyone actually cares that I deactivated it, albeit temporarily, let me know…
Marta Wiechowska // Sep 5, 2008 at 4:01 pm

I see that you’ve disabled Comment Luv … I also had problems with that plugin on a blog.

I’m curious … are you still using the Top Commentators plugin?
David Bradley // Sep 5, 2008 at 4:09 pm

@Marta When I upgraded to 2.6.1 there seemed to be a conflict between a couple of plugins, I took the opportunity to deactivate some of the less important ones including CommentLuv and Top Commentators. I don’t think they were doing very much for Sciencetext anyway and you’re the first person to mention them since.
Marta Wiechowska // Sep 5, 2008 at 4:20 pm

Thanks for replying so quickly … it’s interesting, on some blogs Top Commentators drives traffic like crazy, while on others it doesn’t make a dent.

Nice to discover your blog anyway, thanks again.
David Bradley // Sep 5, 2008 at 4:27 pm

I get decent traffic..averaging around 3000 uniques a day at the moment, I believe, but traffic does not seem to equate to comments even when Luv and Tops were enabled.
Laburhyip // Oct 4, 2008 at 11:21 am

nice blog.. i love this commentluv btw.. but no more rite?
David Bradley // Oct 4, 2008 at 11:54 am

As I mentioned earlier, I disabled this plugin and a bunch of others in an effort to minimize CPU overhead on the site and to make it sleeker all round.
Andy Bailey // Oct 5, 2008 at 3:18 pm

Hi David,
just to let you know that I have updated commentluv so it uses the visitors browser to do the fetching so it should have a significant effect on decreasing your server load if you get a lot of comments.

thanks for keeping the post about it up!
David Bradley // Oct 5, 2008 at 4:46 pm

Thanks for dropping by Andy. Glad you’ve done some optimization. I do recommend CommentuLuv to fellow bloggers although I’m keeping my site stripped back for the time being (nothing personal).