Recent Comments on WP blogs
The other day, Stu over at pimp my page rank was talking about how comments are not only for spammers - which is a very good point. It's a great article, take a read, it links to another article as well…
Now, my thoughts on the matter; I 100% agree that a blogger should reply to replies. I try to do this as much as I can, but some comments just pass me by, I get sidetracked and there we are.
As the blog owner it's quite easy to know when something has been commented as you get an email to tell you so. But what about the other readers of your blog ? It's possibly the most useful addition to a Blog; show recent comments
By showing the recent comments, other readers of your blog can home in directly on the latest updated topics. Allowing them to reply (or just read what other are saying).
It makes sense to add this, does it not ?
As well as pimp my page rank (sorry to pick on you Stu) here are some other blogs I read that have no "recent comments" functionality;
- one dollar a day
- ais sarahfreelance
- dotcomdosh
- blogtrepreneur
- income academy
- pidea
- building my empire
- getchels blog
- adcnet
- flee the cube
All of you guys would probably get a lot more page views if you had a recent comments plugin installed…have a think about it, at least, more page views = more possibilities of increased readership…
Comment by Empress — August 11, 2006 @ 4:58 pm
eeep…. I'd better get doin' something about that
Comment by sarahG — August 11, 2006 @ 6:29 pm
I was wondering what to fill the right hand gap on my site with! which plugin do you have running here?
Comment by Stu — August 11, 2006 @ 6:56 pm
Fair call Burt, I was just thinking about this this morning. But the problem I have is that I already have so much shit in the sidebar as it is!
I guess it comes down to working out what's more important.
Cheers for the linkage BTW!
Comment by burt — August 11, 2006 @ 7:48 pm
No worries guys, just an idea for you all to mull over
Sarah, it's this one:
http://blog.jodies.de/archiv/2004/11/13/recent-comments/
Comment by Will — August 11, 2006 @ 9:22 pm
I think my blog's 2-column layout is straining under the weight. I'm warming to these 3-column layouts!
Comment by Stu — August 11, 2006 @ 9:36 pm
I'm with you Will, just not sure I want to go through the trauma of changing themes again!
Comment by Will — August 11, 2006 @ 10:21 pm
Trauma? It's fun!
Especially, when you've got a handful of plugins installed and you're trying to remember how they all worked…
Much easier than trying to get that flamin' GoTryThis script to work
Comment by Will — August 11, 2006 @ 10:35 pm
All done! Only took an hour and that included browsing time to select a nice theme. Okay, I've still got some tweaking to do such as replacing the oversized header, but it's got some funky features built-in like Ajax.
As for WordPress plugins, I think a great one for encouraging regular comments is Top Commentators. I've configured my install of it to run on a monthly rotation so that contributors get a free home page link for at least a month.
Comment by Stu — August 12, 2006 @ 2:36 am
That's nice work Will! I hear ya as far as the plugins go.
That's a nice comments plugin. I use a similar one for referrers - link to me and the more referrers you send, the higher on the list you go.
Comment by Will — August 12, 2006 @ 2:52 am
Thanks, Stu!
I did consider a referrs plugin, but was a bit put off with the threat of spam referrals.
I'm already getting enough spam comments being submitted. I've also considered installing a CAPTCHA plugin.
Say, Gary, what have you got in place to tackle spam comments?
Comment by Dave — August 12, 2006 @ 3:17 am
Hmm, I guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend.
Comment by burt — August 12, 2006 @ 9:56 am
Looks good, and the recent comments plugin is very useful.
For Spam I use akismet…