Allowing users to comments on your article is one of the easy ways to start building a community. But this will open up your blog to the world of spams and you will end up receiving hundreds of spam comments with junk links. It will become a time consuming task to segregate comments from real users and respond to them. Fortunately WordPress has different possibilities to prevent spam and manage your comments effectively. Here are 10 plugins that will help to manage your WordPress comments easily.
10 Plugins for Managing WordPress Comments
Here are the top 10 plugins to manage comments in WordPress. You may need to integrate third-party account in order to use some plugins like Disqus. Even you prefer to use default WordPress commenting system, it is necessary to use anti-spam plugins to stop spam comments.
1. Akismet
Akismet is an anti spam prevention plugin from Automattic the company that own WordPress.com services. It comes with all WordPress installations by default and requires an Akismet API key for activation. The API key is free for personal usage but you should get the key by registering an account with WordPress.com site.
The comments are automatically filtered for spam and shown under the spam folder or deleted directly. URLs are clearly shown in the comment so that you can see the relevancy for marking it spam manually.
There are some arguments to include this plugin with WordPress installation, as it needs WordPress.com account. If you don’t want to be forced then look for other options.
2. SI Captcha for WordPress
SI Captcha for WordPress is a simple plugin to add captcha image on the comments form to prevent spam. You can add captcha image on the following forms with this plugin:
- Comments form
- Login form
- Registration and lost password form
- Jetpack contact form
- BuddyPress registration form
- WooCommerce checkout form
You can enable or disable the capthca on the required type of forms. Adding captcha will prevent all automatic bots and allow only manual comment submission.
SI Captcha for WordPress plugin also works with Akismet plugin.
3. Anti-spam
Though 90% of the spam comments can be stopped by a captcha, real users may feel difficult to enter the letters in the captcha every time. Anti-spam plugin resolves the spamming issue without adding captcha. This plugin simply checks whether the comment is submitted from the browser or through the bots.
Additional invisible fields are added in the comment form which will get filled through a JavaScript when the comment is submitted from the page. Thus allowing the plugin to identify the comments submitted by bots.
There is also a pro version available for $25.
4. Disable Comments
If you want to remove the complete commenting features from your WordPress site then here is a plugin for you. Disable Comments plugin does the followings and remove the commenting feature site wide:
- Remove comments menu from admin panel
- Remove comments related features from dashboard
- Hide the discussion settings page
- Remove comment related widgets
- Disable pingbacks and RSS/Atom feeds for comments
Remember to delete any existing comments before trying this plugin.
5. Greg’s Comment Length Limiter
Lengthy comments from real users indicate a healthy discussion. But this will have different other problems like loading time, mobile display and distract other users going through the comments. WordPress has a default feature to limit the comments on the page and limit the nested comments. But you can set individual character limit for each comment using Greg’s Comment Length Limiter plugin.
You can set the maximum limit for comment characters and show the limit with an optional counter.
6. WP Ajaxify Comments
WordPress by default reload the page when the user submits a comment. Whenever there is a problem in the comment like empty message, the error message will be shown on a new page. User manually needs press the back button in the browser to go back to the comment to correct the error.
WP Ajaxify Comments resolves this user experience problems nicely by not reloading the page after comment submission. If the comment is successful it will be shown without reloading the page. And if the comment fails, the error message is shown in an overlay on the same screen.
7. Comment Images Reloaded
What if you want to allow users to upload images when commenting? Comment images reloaded plugin offers that cool function and adds browse button to choose and upload an image when commenting.
You can set the size for the images to be displaced and enable zooming function on click.
8. Jetpack Comment System
Jetpack offers a comments module to replace the default comment form offered by your theme. If you are already using Jetpack then it is good idea to try out the comment module. You can activate the module under “Jetpack > Settings > Discussion” menu.
The advantage here is to let users login through their social accounts. You can also offer comment and blog subscription services with Jetpack. Remember you need a WordPress.com account to activate Jetpack first of all.
9. Facebook Comments
Manually adding Facebook comments social plugin on your site is a difficult job for a normal user. Facebook comment WordPress plugin makes this task easy. You need to create a Facebook app id and use it on this plugin to enable Facebook comments on your pages.
10. Disqus Comment System
Disqus is the best alternative commenting plugin for replacing default comment form. It will allow you to manage the comments dedicatedly on different platform with much features. It enables social login, prevent spams and offers best moderation features.
Compared to Jetpack and Facebook comments, Disqus shows advertisements on the comments which may make your user discomfort. You should subscribe to disable the ads.
Final Words
Allowing users to comment on your blog is one of the easiest way to increase user interaction and reduce bounce rate. However, if you received plenty of comments the setup pagination for comments so that it does not go lengthy. As mentioned above, make sure to use spam prevention method along with your commenting system.
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