Comment Luv is Back on This Blog - Join the Party

Well, Comment Luv is back on this site! I'm rebuilding the reader community and now have a way of rewarding real commentators. A couple of days ago I installed the CommentLuv plugin which:

"visits the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their last blog posts which they can choose to include at the bottom of their comment when they click submit." - CommentLuv

Readers can click the link to visit commentator's last post. I've set the feature that allows the comment author to see her last 10 posts and select the one that might interest this blog's readers. Cool!

I could see the difference immediately when 2 real comments came in --- how refreshing!

Many bloggers offer the 10 post selection to subscribers only, but I chose to allow this feature for all commentators. I haven't yet decided on offering DoFollow links or Linked keywords for repeat commentators. These would be extra rewards (enticements) for people participating in community dialog. Currently I use the lite (free) version and those features are available on the Premium version priced at $67 for one-time payment.

What is DoFollow?

By default then someone leaves a comment the website link's html format tells Google and other search engines to NOT follow the link to his blog.That means the link never appears as a back link as far as his page rank is concerned. No juice is passed from the owner's blog to the one making the comment.  By contrast you can tell Comment Luv to change the NoFollow link on the commentator's 'latest post' to DoFollow. This is done by means of Html for the link url.  Please note the default for post content is usually DoFollow. See examples below.

Default link within blog post: is DoFollow and requires no extra tag

   <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-and-replace/">Search & Replace</a>

Customary link within comments: is NoFollow and requires an extra tag

   <a class="url" rel="external nofollow" href="http://letusbuzz.com">sudipto...</a>

CommentLuv override: latest post link to DoFollow using the Rel= tag but blog owner must specify the option.

   <a class="url" rel="external dofollow" href="http://letusbuzz.com">sudipto...</a>

What are Linked Keywords?

With this feature, Comment Luv uses the commentator's preferred keywords to serve as the anchor text for the link. When you add a blog link you may leave the anchor text blank or just key anything associated with the post or website you're linking to. The title= tag holds the anchor text that shows as the mouse hovers over the link.

This text is then used by Google indexing. Example: WPBlogExperts.com has a backlink in the footer on this client site. The link points to the setup page using the keywords "WordPress Setup".  The hope is that Google gives higher search results when someone searches for that service.

One SEO consultant in the tutorial for optimizing keyword links describes the importance of such links:

"Google (and to a lesser degree other search engines) heavily weigh its Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) towards the anchor text of links to a page."

Warning: There are downsides to these extra enticements in the form of smarter human spammers. They use directories that list blogs with the dofollow comments. Those blogs can then become targets. Similarly if you publicize your permission to use Linked Keywords, monitor carefully. However, Premium Commentluv professes to guard against this...

Prior History with Comment Luv

Similar to third-party commenting systems, I've had on-off again periods where I loved and hated Comment Luv on Blogger. When I used the software on Blogger, it required us to use JS-Kit/Echo, instead of Blogger's commenting system.  That setup turned into a horror for me and for Andy, the CommentLuv developer. He got a LOT of flack from Blogspot users and it got unpleasant. He had to require Blogger sites to use Intense Debate as the third-party commenting system.  Thus began my frustrating hunt for a good commenting system which retains my prior commentator links. If you follow the site news, after moving to WP, I used Intense Debate and Disqus, and only recently reverted to native WP comments. So the time was right to re-instate Comment Luv --- I never stopped 'luving' the actual software!

Can I use this on Blogger or WordPress.com?

Yes, for Blogger. You need to install Intense Debate which allows you to get the CommentLuv features. See this tutorial How to Get CommentLuv on Blogger.

No, for WordPress.com.

Your Turn - Let's hear what you have to say about this software.

What do you think about comment luv? How do you reward commentators on your blog? With your feedback and participation, I look forward to expanding this blog's community spirit.