Top Comments Plugin – Good or Bad?
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I’ve received several comments and criticism about not having the top comments plugin. Many bloggers like the plugin, but I like doing things my own way.
Positives for Top Comment Plugin
The top comment plugin can be essential for new blogs to establish a base and start interacting with their readers.
Installing the plugin is great incentive for bloggers to leave comments. Not only do they get a backlink, but the possibility of traffic as well.
By using the top comment plugin, comments for that blog should increase.
Negatives for Top Comment Plugin
Although you are rewarding comments, you may not get “quality” comments. I could assume we might get more comments with the plugin, but they may be even more junk comments than we already get.
Another factor is which websites you are linking to with what keywords. You want to reward your comments, but what if its a blog that is offensive or you just don’t feel good about promoting?
While searching for the top comment website, I found Andy Beard’s article, Multiple Reasons Why I Loathe the Top Commenter Plugin. He sums up his negatives for this plugin, he’s always worth a quick read.
Alternatives for Top Comments
When people ask why we don’t have it, or that we should, I just point them to Comment Friday. This not only gives me the choice of who I link to, but how I do it. I can choose if I want it to be from a quality comment, interesting, sad, funny, or just because I want to.
Another alternatives to a top comment is doing a round-up of top commenters. Pure Blogging used to use this method, but looking through a few pages they don’t seem to do it anymore.
Some blogs run contests for their top commenters of the month. Zac Johnson was (is?) doing this for a while. I won 2-3 times, however I only received one prize :(. Bloggers reward their top commenters with prizes like cash, advertising or other similar prizes.
Do you use the top comment plugin? If not, how to you “reward” your commenters.Random Posts
11 Comments on this post
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Lori said:
I have completely removed the top commenter plugin. I think the comment luv plugin is more rewarding since it shows the last post from the commenter. Who really cares how many times someone has a left a comment..just my 2 cents:)
April 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm -
Sarah said:
Every time I update WP, the plugin I have breaks, so I no longer use any form of it. Plus, I saw a lot more of “good job” posts, and that’s all they said until I removed it, and now I get one or two a month.
I’m with Lori. I prefer the CommentLuv plugin. It’s more “user-friendly”, plus it encourages others to post for the right reasons, not to just see their name listed somewhere. With CommentLuv, the commenter’s link is only seen if another user reads the comment to that post.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:40 pm -
Rhys Wynne said:
I’ve seen a lot of people use Commentluv, which can provide a lot of interesting clickthroughs. I do do a lot for my commenters, with top comments list, dofollow and a roundup of the top commenters every month.
April 7th, 2008 at 2:26 pm -
Link Building Bible said:
As a blog about Link building, I use the top commenters plugin to help my readers get another backlink. But, i can see why some webmasters wouldn’t like it…
A lot of my traffic has come from the top commenters plugins on other sites, as well as my posts being indexed pretty quickly.
It’s your blog, you have to do what works best for you and your readers. i noticed your recent comments links are nofollowed, so a nofollowe dtop commenters plugin would only be good for promotion, not link juice. But, thats 5 times however many pages/posts you have, thats that many sitewide backlinks leaving your domain.
Either way, I’ll still reply you your posts! They are always informative!
April 8th, 2008 at 12:19 am -
sukosaki said:
I use it currently, but agree with Lori. CommentLuv seems to be a better reward and doesn’t give any incentive to comment more than one time.
It’s good that you do your own thing, that’s what it is all about!
April 8th, 2008 at 5:45 am -
Matthew Henrickson said:
So, what everyone is basically saying is that we need Comment Luv? lol
April 8th, 2008 at 10:28 am -
Frank C said:
I’ve been using it for a while and I’m considering pulling it in favor of CommentLuv.
There are some ways that comment spammers can game this plugin. I won’t mention how it’s done but I’ve had this happen a few times recently so that’s what’s pushing me to either dump the widget or modify it to nofollow the links.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:33 pm -
Dennis Edell said:
Hmm, I’ve never seen a do-follow top comment widget.
I currently use do follow, commentluv and subscribe to comments to keep them coming back.
April 8th, 2008 at 4:50 pm -
handmade holiday gift ideas said:
Looking for a WordPress blog plugin that will allow me to create a photo album. I’ve found a couple, but none allow me to add comments, descriptions or links to the individual pictures. Ideally need to be able to associate a URL with each photo.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:21 pm -
F Little said:
This is very interesting, I had had no idea this was going on, thanks for the tip!
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Top Comments Plugin – Good or Bad? | Blog About Your Blog…
An interesting “pros and const” article about the famous “top commentators” plugin. Even if I am for it and have used it successfully, this is a good information to read too….