Top 5 WordPress Plugins That Help Increase Comments

ADVERTISEMENTS

Most blog readers are lurkers, inorder to encourage them to comment and make your blog more active try installing the WordPress Plugins listed below:

  1. Show Top Commentators: This Plugin encourages discussion from your readers by displaying their name (linked to their site without a nofollow tag if desired) and number of comments on the sidebar. The Plugin also gives you the option to reset the list every hour, day, week, month or year.
  2. Brian’s Threaded Comments: This plugin adds a ‘Reply to this comment’ link to every comment. When you use the reply link, your comment is placed directly under the comment you replied to. This plugin helps increase comments, makes it easy for people to reply to comments and prevents readers from scrolling down to look for answers to their questions.
  3. Subscribe to Comments: This plugin allows commenters on your blog to check a box before commenting and get e-mail notification of further comments. This encourages readers to come back and take part in the conversation.
  4. Comment relish: This plugin sends a thank-you email to your blog’s first time commentators. This encourages them to come back again and comment regularly.
  5. Link Love: This plugin turns off nofollow for all commenters who have made at least 10 comments. The number of comments is configurable by changing a variable in the plugin.

Here are some more WordPress Plugins to increase comments on your blog.

Which WordPress plugins do you use to increase comments on your blog?

This post was written to take part in Darren’s latest Group Writing Project- Top 5.

banner

Search JohnTP.com or view a random post

To receive this blogs articles for FREE on your email inbox, just enter your email address below and click 'Go':

Enter your email address: or .

Find out what I am doing currently by .

95 responses so far, Leave a comment

  1. 1

    Website Traffic

    May 8, 2007 at 3:41 am

    I recently installed the top commentators plugin, as well as subscribe to comments and they definitely help.

    I wasn’t aware of the link love plugin, going to have to check that one out.

    I also think avatar plugins help as well, though probably not as much.

  2. 2

    Grace

    May 8, 2007 at 4:03 am

    Those are great plugins! I have most of those plugins already installed on my blog. They’re still great plugins. :)

  3. 3

    egon

    May 8, 2007 at 4:37 am

    I wish comment relish worked for me, it’s a great plugin but the author won’t provide any support

  4. 4

    Make A Guitar

    May 8, 2007 at 4:39 am

    Very cool - I’m already using the first three. :) I think I’ll be looking at 4 and 5 as well. I particularly like the idea of a quick “thank you” to acknowledge new commentators. - Robert

  5. 5

    Stijn

    May 8, 2007 at 4:51 am

    This was an interesting read. Thanks for posting. I’ve spotted a couple of new plugins I’m going to try very soon, perhaps even tonight. Especially Link Love and Threaded Comments.

  6. 6

    alamster

    May 8, 2007 at 6:03 am

    Since wordpress come in two version 2.0.xxx and 2.1.xxxx, might help beginner like me if you add version compatible.

  7. 7

    Benedict Herold

    May 8, 2007 at 6:19 am

    Agreed with all expect 2

  8. 8

    Online Technology

    May 8, 2007 at 6:35 am

    Brains Thr….is a big down. It not only makes the blog loog big time suck but Its hard for readers to find the comments and where it came from. People dont put the name when they reply to individual as they think it goes to the individual but fact is it doesn’t and that what makes it stupid.

    Comment relish works good for me. I get reply that I have alread signed and love your blog its good to know

  9. 9

    Matt

    May 8, 2007 at 7:51 am

    We use #’s 1, 2, & 3. The subscribe to comments is great, but for my personal satisfaction I’ve enjoyed #2 the most. It makes it possible to directly converse which is more inviting and leads to better discussions.

  10. 10

    Ronald Huereca

    May 8, 2007 at 7:56 am

    Hi John,

    This is a great list and I use three of them. I think it would also be beneficial for readers to be able to edit their comments as well (see my link).

    I would also argue that the Preview Comments plugin you have installed encourages comments as well.

    Take care,

    Ronald

  11. 11

    Court

    May 8, 2007 at 8:17 am

    I had never even heard of the Link Love plugin, I think that’s a fantastic idea. That one seems like it would be really good for both sides and most spammers aren’t patient enough to leave ten legitimate comments.

  12. 12

    Nirmal

    May 8, 2007 at 10:01 am

    I have installed all the plugins listed here except the second one. The others are really nice ones to increase the comments.

  13. 13

    Garry Conn

    May 8, 2007 at 10:26 am

    Threaded comments are awesome! I will never go back.

  14. 14

    subhash

    May 8, 2007 at 12:14 pm

    is there anything to show top commentators in blogger ???

    I really need some plugins of wordpress for my blogger…can ny1 try to make these ??

  15. 15

    Swade

    May 8, 2007 at 3:01 pm

    Great post. I’m looking to switch to WP from MT and this will be a great help in offering the best experience for visitors. Thanks.

  16. 16

    Ron

    May 8, 2007 at 3:39 pm

    This is not error/get some problem when we install all of those plugins into our blog?

  17. 17

    JohnTP

    May 8, 2007 at 5:33 pm

    There are other plugins that can help increase comments as well but I just listed out the Top 5, to participate in Darren’s latest group writing project :)

  18. 18

    Ryan J. Parker

    May 8, 2007 at 5:57 pm

    Link Love… that’s an interesting plugin… going to have to give that one a shot.

  19. 19

    egon

    May 8, 2007 at 6:42 pm

    I use dofollow but I think I like LinkLove a bit more. dofollow opens the door to spammers.

  20. 20

    listikal

    May 8, 2007 at 6:56 pm

    Excellent post John. I use the Top Commentators plugin, but I’ll be making sure I install a few of these other ones as well.

  21. 21

    Online Technology

    May 8, 2007 at 8:10 pm

    Link Love is good plugin but can be bad in SEO terms. Too many out going links are not considered good.

    I agree with you. Best is give links to their post.

  22. 22

    Grace

    May 8, 2007 at 9:11 pm

    subhash- Wordpress plugins are Wordpress plugins. Blogger plugins are Blogger plugins. They are not the same company. I believe Blogger doesn’t support plugins yet.

  23. 23

    kuanhoong

    May 8, 2007 at 9:23 pm

    I am using top commentators plugin as well. I find it’s quite useful to identify who are your faithful readers

  24. 24

    Cars Lovers Space

    May 8, 2007 at 10:14 pm

    does any wedgets for Blogger(blogspot)?

  25. 25

    egon

    May 8, 2007 at 10:18 pm

    does any wedgets for Blogger(blogspot)?

    huh?

  26. 26

    Latest Technology Updates

    May 8, 2007 at 10:55 pm

    Is there anything in blogger to increase comments ..:D

  27. 27

    DotNetNuke

    May 9, 2007 at 12:40 am

    LinkLove is excellent plug-in with Top Commentators

  28. 28

    Techie Buzz

    May 9, 2007 at 12:53 am

    I use four of these except for the threaded conversation plugin, all four really are quite useful.

  29. 29

    J-Ro

    May 9, 2007 at 10:30 am

    Great list! Thanks!

  30. 30

    Alex

    May 9, 2007 at 3:01 pm

    I use some of those plugins and I will try the other, It would be great if every blog uses Link Love :)

  31. 31

    Madhur Kapoor

    May 9, 2007 at 4:26 pm

    I have used almost all of these except the Threaded comments . Will try that too .

  32. 32

    Online Technology

    May 9, 2007 at 7:59 pm

    LINK Love will affect SEO of every blog. Thats one problem. Best is to give TC a link love to the post

  33. 33

    Madhur Kapoor

    May 9, 2007 at 10:00 pm

    Technology
    Does Link Love has a good effect or a bad effect on SEO .

  34. 34

    Online Technology

    May 10, 2007 at 12:44 am

    : Its bad. Too many outgoing links can even get ur PR down

  35. 35

    LearningNerd

    May 10, 2007 at 12:57 am

    Thanks for sharing! I had only heard of two of them, and the other three look pretty useful. Great post!

  36. 36

    Jennifer

    May 10, 2007 at 3:22 am

    I have never seen the Comment Relish plug in before, so thanks. I will check it out.

  37. 37

    Everyday Weekender

    May 10, 2007 at 5:13 am

    I can’t for the life of me get subscribe to comments to work..

  38. 38

    Rhys

    May 10, 2007 at 1:53 pm

    The annoying thing about comment relish is that if you do trackbacks, then it can scupper your blog big time. Trackbacks are classed as comments but have no email address associated with them. It really messes up your blog and you have to forcibly remove it from your blog via http://ftp. Not good.

  39. 39

    Jon Allen

    May 10, 2007 at 2:14 pm

    I wish more blogs had these plugins, in fact, I wish I could add these to my blog, but I’m on blogger.com.
    If I ever start another blog, I’d go for wordpress for sure.

  40. 40

    peterzsk

    May 10, 2007 at 2:53 pm

    thanks for share

  41. 41

    Ralf Skirr

    May 10, 2007 at 5:29 pm

    Thanks! I never heard of comment relish before.

  42. 42

    egon

    May 10, 2007 at 6:40 pm

    : Any way you could clarify on exactly what the problem is? When you get a trackback without an email address you would think it just wouldn’t email anything, just as is a commenter didn’t leave his email address. This isn’t the case?

  43. 43

    Online Technology

    May 10, 2007 at 6:45 pm

    : You can filter them out by using the same loop which seperates the comments from trackback. I have seen those emails which fails.

  44. 44

    Online Technology

    May 10, 2007 at 6:46 pm

    : If the email is missing it will create problems. Be it commentator or trackback.

    One more thing its a problem for spammers too. If somebody is in his email id is with him

  45. 45

    elysa

    May 11, 2007 at 1:26 am

    ooo I like Comment Relish that sounds like fun. subscribing. nice to meet you.

  46. 46

    Kempton

    May 11, 2007 at 4:38 am

    Thanks for the great list of plugins, John. I will try them all.

  47. 47

    egon

    May 11, 2007 at 9:43 pm

    : That’s a good point. They should fix that on the next release. All they have to do is ignore the plugin if there is no email address present.

  48. 48

    AmeyJah

    May 12, 2007 at 11:44 am

    Yeah, very informative post. by the way how did you find those plugins

  49. 49

    David Bradley

    May 12, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    I added the Show Top Commentators plugin to Sciencetext.com yesterday and had three new comments over night! Working well. I also did a mini-review of the plugin, which took a few tweaks to get working properly in a Samsarin php widget. But, okay now.

  50. 50

    Dan Chase

    May 15, 2007 at 6:22 am

    Great Top 5, John. I’m using a couple of them already, and will try the others. If there are problems, I’ll see about fixing them. There are always the possibility of conflicts between plugins. I’ve run into them before. When ever you have a problem with a particular one, it might be a conflict.

  51. 51

    Jay Peterson

    May 16, 2007 at 8:55 am

    What is a blog for if you do not feel that you are reaching anyone? Comments give you a sense that your articles are being read and appreciated/hated.

    I really like the Comment Relish. Encourages more and more people to read what you have to say. Reciprocal appreciation is great. Cheers!

  52. 52

    DotNetNuke

    May 16, 2007 at 12:52 pm

    Btw, i heard that new version of WordPress released.

  53. 53

    Online Technology

    May 16, 2007 at 7:16 pm

    I agree with Jay. I get responded my many readers or newbies that they like my blog and will subscribe for it.

  54. 54

    Steve S

    May 19, 2007 at 4:56 am

    Link love is my absolute favorite, and yes the new Wordpress version has been released.

  55. 55

    2 BROS BLOGGING

    May 19, 2007 at 3:40 pm

    Oops, I didn’t read this post before commenting on the other one. It always mentions Top Commentators! LOL

  56. 56

    Jason A Clark

    May 27, 2007 at 8:05 am

    This is a great list. I am either using or will be using four of the five plugins.

  57. 57

    ~kat

    June 11, 2007 at 1:29 am

    Thanks for the tips, I’ve implemented them all excluding Briant’s as I need to figure the CSS for it first as I don’t like the current layout of it.

  58. 58

    neotica

    July 8, 2007 at 8:37 pm

    I used subscribe to comments plugin in my old blog, and people liked that. Comments are the tracks that you are being watched.

  59. 59

    Noorizam Shah

    July 13, 2007 at 1:56 pm

    i have some problem with my plugin.. when i’m loading top commentor in my plugin..

    i can’t write a post as a normal..

    it’s show like that

    Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/pelamin/public_html/noorizamshah/wp-content/plugins/show_top_commentators.php:162) in /home/pelamin/public_html/noorizamshah/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 329

    can you help me?

  60. 60

    Patches and Hacks

    July 19, 2007 at 2:41 am

    If you’re using the comment relish plugin, and you have many comments on your blog, this plugin is going to kill your blog just like it killed John Chow’s blog.
    I created a fix for the performance problem and you can get it from here: Comment relish optimization

  61. 61

    JTPRATT's Blogging Mistakes

    July 19, 2007 at 10:01 pm

    I didn’t see it mentioned in the post, but a lot of the top sites for blogging mention over and over again the need to build ‘community’ in your site to drive traffic and make it successful. They key to that is of course interactivity and engaging your visitors. Comments are probably the number one way of doing that, especially since they come right after each piece of content. Also, sometimes comments hold information that make the article even more valuable (or help fix a problem or something not completely detailed in the article. It only makes sense to make the comments are user-friendly as possible. I was using several of these, but some of the others I didn’t even know about. thanks!!

  62. 62

    Vic

    August 3, 2007 at 8:51 am

    Thanks for such a great list of plugins, this list are so helpful for the new guy.

    Thanks

    Vic

  63. 63

    SD

    August 28, 2007 at 9:59 pm

    Thanks for the list!

  64. 64

    Referáty zeměpis

    December 23, 2007 at 3:46 am

    Thank you for plugins, I will use this one.

  65. 65

    Chan

    January 13, 2008 at 4:03 pm

    I just used the plugin that you shown in this page. I hope this plugin will increase comments in my photograph site.
    Thanks again.

  66. 66

    women and dating

    January 20, 2008 at 1:42 pm

    Does the basic wordpress theme have a nofollow because i wouldnt like to lose page rank every time someone posts on my dating blog.

  67. 67

    Holly

    February 17, 2008 at 1:17 pm

    Love the threaded comments plugin, I just installed it!

  68. 68

    Franca Richard

    March 18, 2008 at 9:00 pm

    Great share, I will put all of them on my blog, thanks, John!

  69. 69

    after5

    April 3, 2008 at 7:26 pm

    Thanks!
    Already had 2 installed going to try the rest

  70. 70

    Costa-Rica

    May 5, 2008 at 7:44 pm

    I have installed first plugin and gonna install Link Love next.
    Thank you for this post.

  71. 71

    Gary Ooi

    May 7, 2008 at 5:54 pm

    Nice plugins. Now I’m cracking my head to figure out how to increase the comment in my blog. Hope I can implement some of the plugins and see what it brings.

  72. 72

    Xavier Damman

    May 22, 2008 at 4:14 pm

    There is new plugin quite promising to foster constructive discussions.
    It is called commentag (http://www.commentag.com) and it allows to tag comments to keep discussions sorted.
    They use that on TheNextWeb.org and it is a great add-on!

  73. 73

    androo

    August 1, 2008 at 11:02 pm

    nice collection… i’m going to have to implement a few into my site thanks!

  74. 74

    joels

    August 22, 2008 at 2:35 pm

    nice plugin i will try it tonight… thx

  75. 75

    Daniel Hall

    August 24, 2008 at 4:35 pm

    Great resource I am starting out with word press so will install these plugins.. I don’t think my “list of improvements” is going to end!

Have something to say?




Copyright ©2005-2008 JohnTP, All rights reserved.