If you run a WordPress site, then you may feel the need to search for a medium that can help in improving the default WordPress comment system for your theme.
Though the default comment system is good, but it lacks several features. But, what if you want to extend the basic commenting system of your WordPress site? You can achieve such an objective with the help of following useful plugins:
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Disqus Comment System
If you’re a blogger, then you must have heard of Disqus – one of the most popular and extensively used blog commenting systems. The Disqus plugin helps in replacing your WordPress comment system with the Disqus powered comments. It is a useful plugin that helps in building community, by giving the ability for users to leave a comment on any website apart from their your own WordPress site.
Some of the key features of this plugin are:
• Provide support for threaded comments.
• Sends notifications regarding new comments posted in the thread.
• Offers subscription options for each and every comment.
• Comes loaded with inbuilt spam and malware filters.
Yoast Comment Hacks
The plugin is aimed at making content management a hassle free task. It basically adds some hacks around the core functionality of the WordPress comment system, so as to make the system manageable.
Some of the hacks that this plugin introduces are:
• It provides the option to disallow comments that don’t meet the minimum length criteria.
• It redirects new commenters to a thank you page.
• Helps in improving email notifications.
• Allows to send an email to individual commenters.
Simple Comment Editing
It’s pretty easy for your users to make spelling mistakes or a few other errors while submitting a comment on your site. Thanks to the Simple Comment Editing plugin, you can give your WordPress website users the ability to edit and/or delete the comments they have posted on the site – till a set period of time.
The plugin comes packed with a list of below mentioned features:
• It does not provide any options and just perform the desired task.
• Allows anonymous users to make some edits to their comments for 5 minutes.
• It doesn’t require any styling.
• You can achieve advanced customization using the plugin with the help of filters.
Comments Evolved
Previously known as Google+ comments plugin, the Comments Evolved has grown into something much greater. It not just allows to embed comments on your blog from Google+, but also allows to integrate comments with your WordPress site using other social platforms such as Facebook and Disqus.
Some of the key features these plugin includes are:
• Help keep the comment threads separated, by displaying a single comment in just one thread.
• It provides the options to log in to various services.
• It boasts a user-friendly interface.
Subscribe to Comments Reloaded
If your blog post or article leads to community discussion or results in heated debate, your readers will most likely be interested in staying updated with what users have to say about your feeds. Of course, they can keep themselves up-to-date about the new entries, by subscribing to comment feeds. But, wouldn’t it be better if they can receive an email notification for any comment that is posted in some particular article? This can be achieved using the Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin.
Here are a few features that the plugin provides:
• Enables commenters to receive email notification for subsequent comment entries.
• Allows users to manage comment subscription.
Moderator Role
It can be quite difficult to cope up with comment moderation if you run a large website or receive high traffic on your site. Perhaps, you may choose some third party commenting platform for content moderation. But, what if you can allow your users to play the role of content moderator? That’s possible with the help of the Moderator plugin that helps in getting real comments to your blog.
Note: You must consider rewarding users with any credit or a backlink in your blog sidebar to encourage them to work as your content moderator.
Wrapping Up!
You can find many useful plugins that can help in improving your WordPress theme comment system. In this post, I’ve covered some of the best plugins that will help in enhancing your site’s commenting experience to a great extent, and will dramatically improve your user engagement.
Thanks to Samuel Dawson for writing this awesome article for us. He is a perfect professional in Designs2html Ltd where he is responsible for PSD to WordPress conversion with the perfect percentage. Samuel loves to read various articles on WordPress and he also shares his thoughts by writing on WordPress.
Thank you once again for this generous post and the way you explain the features of alternative wordpress comment plugins.
Hi There,
Which comment system are you using right now? Why you do not use disqus?
Thanks again,
Jose
I use default wordpress comment system along with zero spam wordpress plugin.
Thanks for commenting.