How much do you care about comments made on your blog? Really you should appreciate reader comments and I know you always do. Whether someone comment on your blog or you gonna comment on someone else's blog, it helps to build relationships directly or indirectly. If you wanna know how comments help build relationships, read Adrienne Smith's commenting tips. Why do you blog? There could be many number of reasons I can think of. But the most relevant question here would be - Who is your audience? 'Cause its answer will help you to select best commenting option you need. You may have a public blog where you share your thoughts and ideas publicly. Or you may have restricted it for few people as you wanna create more private space with few contributors. So by looking at your audience, you might wanna select who can comment or cannot on your blog with available options. Did you find best comment option for your blog?
What is the Best Commenting Option for Your Audience?
Obviously, if you just wanna share with few people and you want them to contribute on your blog, you never need any other to comment on your blog. Even by mistakenly. So you just need to allow your members to participate and comment on posts. Else if your blog is open for public, it would be a totally different story. Then you don't need to narrow down your audience or explicitly approve them to comment on your blog. Therefor your commenting option should go easy with most of your readers at least. However as per your audience and your preferences, you have to set different commenting permissions.
Blogger has Several...
Absolutely you don't need to go for external comment services if you have different requirements for commenting or have to deal with different kind of audience. Blogger has commenting options which may suitable for you, either if you want anyone to comment on your blog or else if you wanna let few to participate with commenting. If you are looking for a private space, Blogger has a single option perfectly match for you. But as you go public with your blog, Blogger offers 3 options for that.
Except for letting anyone to comment on your blog, you can either allow commenting only for Google/Blogger account holders or using their LiveJournal profile, WordPress account, AIM profile, TypePad account or OpenID. Those options are really worthy if you want your readers to comment using a registered profile to reduce comments made by spammers as spammy comments can really hurt you. Not sure about it? Read Barry Wells' helpful article about how spammy comments can hurt you. So they have to use their registered account to comment on your blog. If you let anyone to comment on your blog though they have registered profiles or not, everyone can come and comment on your posts and they will find it really convenient. Also it will increase conversions too.
But as my personal experience, the downside of it is that it includes Anonymous option where people can leave comments without exposing their real names. It's a worthy option if your topic is criticizing badly or embarrassing enough and no one needs to expose their real names. But when it comes to general topics, it can be misused by marketers and spammers to create backlinks by leaving links. So you have to spend more time on removing tasteless or spammy comments. However as per your requirement, remember to select best option convenient for your readers.
But as my personal experience, the downside of it is that it includes Anonymous option where people can leave comments without exposing their real names. It's a worthy option if your topic is criticizing badly or embarrassing enough and no one needs to expose their real names. But when it comes to general topics, it can be misused by marketers and spammers to create backlinks by leaving links. So you have to spend more time on removing tasteless or spammy comments. However as per your requirement, remember to select best option convenient for your readers.
Steps:
1. Go to Blogger Dashboard.
2. Click on your Blog Title.
3. Navigate to Settings.
4. Go to Posts and comments tab under Settings.
5. Now find Who can comment? setting under Comment section.
6. Select your best suitable and preferred commenting option there.
Anyone - This option will let anyone comment on your blog. Users can comment as Anonymous or leave name with their site URL. Else they can comment using a registered account such as Google/Blogger account, LiveJournal profile, WordPress account, AIM profile, TypePad account or OpenID. Sometimes it could be pretty annoying as users can comment as Anonymous users.
Registered User - This option allows your readers to comment using their registered accounts. Readers need to have at least a Google/Blogger account, LiveJournal profile, WordPress account, AIM profile, TypePad account or OpenID to comment on your blog.
User with Google Accounts - Here if you select this option, your readers need to have Google account to comment on your blog. However they have to sign up for a Blogger account if they are not already signed up to Blogger.
Only members of this blog - This option is useful if you manage a private blog. With this option your blog will restrict to team members. Team members means it could be administrators or authors of the blog.
7. Now click Save settings button on top to confirm.
Enjoy :-)
2 comments:
Hi Mayura,
Thanks for mentioning and linking to my blog post on spam comments and how to spot them.
I think it is extremely important to know who is commenting on your blogs and would never allow an anonymous comment on mine.... Unless the person had previously got in touch with me and asked if it was ok and explained why they wanted to remain anonymous.
Its good that there are measures in place to protect the blog owners using Blogger and I think your guide will help them protect themselves.
Its good to see that you're now displaying some of your comment rules Mayura, I hope people take note of them and comment within the rules. Anything else and they're wasting their time ;)
Thanks Mayura, have a great week my friend.
Barry
Hi Barry,
As I deal with comments these days, I thought yours and Adrienne's posts can really help readers understand how to deal with comments :)
Interesting ! Actually as you've pointed out, someone may need to remain anonymous, but they gotta ask me first. "My Blog - My Rules". right? ;) Anonymous feature was really annoying for me 'cause there is no reason for anyone to hide their name when commenting on my posts. I'm not talking about controversial subjects. Am I? ;)
Blogger offers some options for bloggers to filter comments but sometimes they may not follow comment rules they've imposed in their blogs. It applies for me too ;) After displaying comment rules, I was able to see some sort of improvements in quality comments. But spammers are always out there.
Thanks for adding color for this post with your ideas and suggestions Barry :)
You have a great week too my friend :)
Cheers...
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